Being Human In the Shadow of Wings
by TJ4ev
Summary: Being Human UK, Series 6 in my personal head canon. All Being Human characters belong to Toby Whithouse, etc. My OC is my own creation, and boy am I having fun with her! Hal has finally met his match! This story contains SPOILERS for Series 5. Rated M. Many thanks to Saemay and whimsyfox for editing and encouragement. Thanks to all who leave reviews. Feedback is appreciated!
1. Chapter 1 Let Me Introduce Myself

Ch 1, Let Me Introduce Myself

Lena was cooking her favorite kind of toasted cheese sandwich, smoked Gouda on seeded rye bread, when her dad and grandpa showed up. She knew it was a business call because the sound of her sandwich frying disappeared as the steam rising from the skillet froze and the light in the kitchen became effervescent. Only eternal light can do that, and only eternal beings can create a bubble in reality simply by appearing in the room. _Angels. At least I won't have to fix them a lunch,_ she thought.

As was typical, her grandfather Raphael gathered her into a hug and kiss on the cheek. With his intelligent expression, white hair in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, untucked shirt and loose jeans he most resembled a strikingly handsome software designer.

Aware of his position of authority, her dad Michael wore a sharp blue suit and made sure that his human appearance was appropriately respectable, right through his blond hair and matching gold cuff links. He stood as if he preferred not to be wrinkled by too much contact.

Always direct, Michael gave no greeting. "You are needed."

"I figured as much when you didn't bother to knock," Lena said, shaking her spatula at them. "One of these days you're going to catch me in my skivvies."

"You know that's men's underwear, right?" Raphael chuckled. "I know you don't like girly clothes, but…"

"No fashion advice from you, Grandpa. That paisley shirt is straight from the '60's. So last century."

"It's coming back, haven't you heard?"

"Caedis Cruciatus is running amok in England," Michael interrupted. "It needs to be stopped but we haven't been called in yet. We'd rather it didn't reach that point."

"Caedis Cruciatus! Wasn't that bastard demon run back into the pit by its own creations?" Lena wasn't the most precise student of demonic history.

"It was weakened and bound in a human, but escaped before the human host could be killed. It has been in hiding and has apparently found a way to strengthen itself through the beings that carry its curses," Raphael explained. "I know you've been in America for the last couple of hundred years, but you really should keep up on these things."

"I'm semi-retired, you know this," Lena said. "Call in Uri and his family. They're closer."

There was a slight pause before Michael said, "We did. They failed." He looked out the window at a world frozen, unnatural, waiting.

Lena caught her breath. "Casualties?"

"Yes." Michael looked back at his daughter. She stood in her sunny kitchen in sweat pants and a math nerd t-shirt showing Pi to 3045 digits, looking for all the world like a 20-something college student instead of an ancient nemesis of all things evil. He would never understand her, just as he would never understand her mother's more human aspects, but he knew her well enough to know that she would grieve the loss of life, even though she recognized eternity.

Raphael put his arm around Lena's shoulders and pulled her to him. "I know, Lovely, I know. It is hard to see old friends leave the world, even if you still know where to find them." He released her, getting back to the reason for their visit. "Caedis Cruciatus is much stronger than we expected. It plans a full-scale apocalypse and is calling other demons to its cause. It is trying to become a big 'D' devil. It must be stopped."

Lena looked around her peaceful, rural kitchen with a frown, eyes wandering over the hand-turned pottery coffee mugs and bowl of apples, her mind moving outward to her garden and the hammock under two oak trees. _I don't want to leave this and go chasing after some dickhead demon! _She caught her breath. _Holy shit on a shingle! When did I become a Hobbit?_

"Alright. Fuck it. I'm in." Lena deftly flipped her semi-toasted cheese sandwich out of the skillet with one hand and caught it in the other. "Close up the house?" she asked Raphael as her dad grabbed her arm and they disappeared.

Lena and Michael reappeared near a television station, apparently abandoned. Lena took a bite of her sandwich. "Fill me in?"

"Right." Michael pointed toward the station. "This is where it started. Caedis Cruciatus commandeered the national emergency broadcast system with a plan to tell everyone watching to kill themselves. Apparently it developed great powers of verbal persuasion while trapped in human form. This type of demon feeds on death and violence, and suicide usually has both, so every death it causes makes it stronger."

"Smart move," Lena said, assessing the threat. "So, where are we?"

"Cardiff."

"Wales! Again? What is it with this place and disasters? First vampires and now demons! Shit fire and save the matches! What next?"

"Language!" Raphael appeared next to Lena. "I turned off your stove and locked up, by the way. You may be gone for a while."

"Thanks, Grandpa. So, is Caedis Cruciatus still in there? It doesn't feel like it." She took another bite. "Is the plan in play?"

"It went slightly awry when our old friends the Men in Grey cut the satellite feed halfway through the demon's speech." Raphael said with a slight smile. "Still, enough had been said to effect the weak-minded. There were just over five million suicides."

"Holy shit!" Lena gasped. "That many weak-minded, eh? So that'll be the government and some sectors of the business world decimated, I guess."

"Lena! Not funny! People have died! Another quarter-million have been murdered in the last two days. The demon is on a rampage and growing stronger." Raphael shook his head. "What's more, it is building an army, drawing others to its cause. Even the MiG are out of their depth here. Nothing in their archives will have prepared them for this. That's why Uri's family got involved."

"So if Caedis Cruciatus isn't here, why are we?"

Michael answered, "The cursed beings who first gave it the strength to move are in there, guarded. A vampire and a werewolf, and a ghost as well. The demon's power is linked to them somehow, or it would have killed them already."

"Are they in cahoots?" Lena was a fan of Western movies. Michael was not. At his frown, Lena continued. "Come on Dad, you know what I mean. If they're helping Caedis I should kill them. Might weaken Dickhead Demon and make it easier to track down."

"You can't kill them, they aren't helping Caedis. In fact, they were trying to stop the demon, even though they believe it is the Devil itself they were fighting. They had some kind of blood ritual started," Michael said. "They are victims, not "cahoots'."

Lena sighed, barely refraining from an eye roll at her dad. "Really? Then why is the ghost still in there? He can't hold a ghost against its will." She continued, "The werewolf may be a victim, but I've never met an innocent vampire. Killing it would do some good, maybe slow Dickhead up enough to make it easier for me to catch." _I'm not passing up a chance to dust a fanghead_, she thought.

Raphael and Michael exchanged uneasy looks, neither one of them wanting to break the news. Finally, just as Lena was going to ask them what was up, Raphael said, "Lovely, I'm sorry. It's Hal Yorke."

Lena staggered, her legs suddenly weak, her vision hazy. She put her hands on her knees and took a couple of steadying breaths, trying to keep her sandwich in place in her heaving stomach.

"He survived the explosion at Stoker's? He didn't die with the rest of them?" Lena felt herself winding up into a full-blown tantrum, and she didn't care. "Hal. Yorke. Hal "the butcher" Yorke. Hal "the only vampire in creation I'm not allowed to kill" Yorke. I have to save Hal fucking Yorke? Oh, this is rich! My god! The creator has a sick sense of humor! I pass. I won't do it. I'm out."

Raphael grabbed her arm before she could disappear. "Not this again! Lena, you're better than this! Let it go!"

She pulled her arm away, viciously. "No! I promised not to harm him, because you forced me to. That's all you're getting from me!"

Michael stepped between them. As far as he was concerned, the discussion was over. "You are the only Seraphin Nepos* with the strength and experience to keep this mini-apocalypse from becoming the real thing. If human life is important to you, you have no choice but to do this thing."

"Can't you call up a legion of angels and deal with it, Dad? I know you're itching for a good battle, you're wearing chain mail under your suit."

"You know we can't act on our own volition. I may be the commander of the host, but I still wait for orders." Michael gave his daughter a tight smile. "If, however, a family member was in desperate need of help against dark forces, I'm sure I'd be forgiven …"

"Michael, don't talk like that," Raphael interrupted. "You know Lena's not going to need help. She's your daughter after all, and she's been protecting humanity for a long time." He turned to his granddaughter. "Off you go, you have work to do."

Lena stood for a moment, shoulders drooping, eyes on the ground. "Language!" her grandpa gasped.

"I didn't say anything!"

"No, but you covered Carlin's seven deadly words and then some in your mind," he said. "I know you, remember?"

"Shit! Fuck!" Lena snapped out two of the seven, her personal favorites, as she turned to go.

"What, you're going into battle like that? No chain mail?" her father arched an eyebrow, teasing her gently, reminding her in his own way to get her act together.

"I'll have what I need when I need it, just like you taught me." She smiled slightly. "At least I've got shoes on this time, not like the day you dropped me on Vesuvius." She pointed to her canvas Keds, turned, and stepped out of eternity and into Wales.

Michael and Raphael watched their powerful, ethical, troubled, ageless child walk away. "We may lose her completely this time," Michael said. "She could get lost in her rage and not come back."

"We won't. She has too much of her mother and grandmother in her. She'll find her way."

"You trust humanity's corrupting influence instead of her angel nature?"

Raphael turned to his son-in-law. "Lucifer had no humanity and he fell. Human mercy, human empathy, the human capacity for love, those human qualities drew us to our wives, remember? Lena has those qualities too. That's what I'm trusting."

Michael nodded. "Let's hope you're right."

Lena walked toward the driveway of the television station, changing her appearance slightly as she went. Red-gold hair became soft brown, rich brown eyes became quiet grey, her face became rounder, her skin slightly blemished. No reason to draw attention to herself as anything other than normal and human.

One of her gifts as a Seraphin Nepos was the ability to take any human form she chose. _Runs in the family,_she chuckled as she considered what her dad and grandfather looked like without their human camouflage.

Because she was part immortal Lena could interact with things beyond the physical world. She could see blessings resting like the wings of doves across the shoulders of their hosts, or draped like garlands of flowers, adding beauty and fragrance to their blessed ones.

More often, in her line of work, she saw curses: the shadow of the werewolf that hung over its victim and grew more clearly defined as the full moon approached: the vampire curse that propelled dead flesh into horrific violence, growing as it fed, eventually hiding the form of its human host almost completely.

Lena also saw demons peeking through the eyes of murderers and rapists, whirling clouds of minions following the great devils who commanded armies and countries through the guise of generals and politicians. She had lost count of how many she had destroyed.

_No wonder I'm trying to retire, _she grumbled to herself as she considered Caedis Cruciatus. _Fucking demons and their fucking curses. I'm too old for this shit. I've probably come across every kind of demon and curse there is. Bastards only get uglier._

Reaching the driveway, Lena turned casually, as if checking for traffic. She took one more look at the two beings she loved more dearly than any human on the planet. _Right. Let's not drag them into this._ She stepped onto station property and walked calmly toward the next battle, keeping step to the lyrics of "Yellow Submarine*" that she sang quietly and slightly out of tune. Lena sensed the evil enclosing the station and she knew it was guarded, probably by a good number of Caedis' minions.

As she advanced, Lena could see the curse that Caedis Cruciatus had placed to seal the station from outsiders. Its formless black malevolence draped over the building and rippled slightly as she approached; unblinking eyes moved into position to watch her. Red eyes, Lena noticed, not yellow. _This is not your typical curse designed to keep out unknowing humans,_ she thought_. Uri's assault gave Caedis enough trouble to warrant increased defenses._ Still, she had dispatched countless curses this tough or tougher. She silently thanked her father and grandfather for her training.

One of Lena's favorite gifts was the ability to hide recognition of what she was from her enemies until she was ready for the big reveal. Feigning ignorance of all things supernatural, Lena reached the front door and gave a sharp tug, pulling it open slightly and drawing the red eyes of the curse in close to inspect her. She stepped back as if puzzled by the stuck door, then looked the curse directly in the eyes and smiled.

Before the curse had a chance to react, two ephemeral blades appeared in Lena's hands. They became fully formed and perfectly sharp as she spun them in her hands and gouged the eyes out of the curse. It writhed briefly, then disintegrated. Lena flung open the door to the television station and stalked in, calling out "Honey, I'm home!" for all its occupants to hear.

"I'm feeling a little Michelle Yeoh, anybody want to come play warrior with me?" She called out as she walked into a cavernous studio. Lena held her swords at the ready as a herd of expressionless soulless corpses with burning eyes advanced toward her. "What, you don't know Michelle Yeoh? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon*?" She laughed; her battlefield monologue was as snappy as ever.

She rushed the crowd, quartering a demon-possessed body in a flash, then another as she charged through, the body parts landing with thuds on the floor, what looked like coal dust flying into the air. Lena ran a few steps up a wall, flipped, and spun in mid-air like any great martial-arts action hero, splitting two bodies lengthwise as they turned to face her, too late. She was behind them again. "Come on guys, you're making this too easy! What are you, Uma Thurman fans? Pick up the pace!"

She slashed the next two from shoulder to hip, giant X's appearing on their torsos before they fell to pieces, more black dust landing around them on the floor. "Haven't you figured it out yet? You can't stop me! I'm not human and neither are these blades!" She laughed as the remaining seven demons hesitated and began to back away. "Angel blades, baby! Eternally sharp and guaranteed to rend you to bits. No going home for you lot, this is your Oblivion Day."

_Okay, that was way cheesy, I've clearly seen too many Bruce Willis movies_, she said to herself, then shrugged. _Eh, what the hell._

As if they shared a brain, which they did, the demons circled her, each one picking up a weapon of sorts from the equipment lying about. "Six down, seven to go. Lucky 13, eh? Classic cliché evil. Can't Dickhead think of anything that hasn't already been done?" Lena relaxed, poised and calm, waiting for the next move.

A once-cute, now-dead girl threw a chair at her, which she avoided by jumping straight up, allowing it to fly across the circle and knock down a once-cuter, now-just-as-dead girl whose weapon of choice was a letter opener. _Not much loss, really,_ Lena thought as she landed and charged the camera-boom-wielding guy next to letter-opener girl. She sliced the boom into pieces as it was swung at her, ending with one sword piercing the fellow's chest, the other pinning the girl to the floor. A quick flip of her wrists and two more down, five to go.

"Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate? Me!" she chanted in classic American cheerleader fashion as she hacked the arms off the next demon (microphone-stand man) and quartered his head for good measure. "Score, score, we want more!" she murmured as she ducked to avoid a video camera whizzing past, then sliced the legs off of its flinger, a now empty-handed ginger fellow who looked slightly puzzled as he fell into her other sword.

The three remaining demons dropped their weapons and any pretense of humanity and charged her, contorting their host bodies as bones broke, limbed extended, and fangs and talons appeared ready for the attack.

"Finally!" Lena cried, "I get to see the real you!" The demons moved with supernatural speed, but Lena matched it, trumped it, as a suggestion of wings appeared across her shoulders, propelling her and protecting her from their onslaught. Within moments it was over.

_***Seraphin Nepos** is a creature of my own invention. The term means 'angel descendants' and is used to refer to all of those who have angel/immortal genetics as part of their heritage. _

_*"Yellow Submarine" is a Beatles song._

_*__**Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon**__ is an excellent film._


	2. Chapter 2 I'm Batman

Lena stood in a cloud of coal dust and a pile of body parts, waiting. She sensed more evil in the place, but no more bodies to carry it. Her wings faded of their own accord. She tucked her swords back into invisibility and headed for the only human with a soul in the building. She assumed it was the werewolf.

She hopped easily over the jumble of mess in the studio and moved into a carpeted hallway toward what appeared to be the business offices of the television station. She walked carefully, expectantly, knowing the peace wouldn't last.

Suddenly she felt a whoosh, then a whirlwind of air along with the sound of myriad small explosions. Lena turned to see a mass of studio lights dangling still-sparking wire, video cameras, cords, cables and motherboards spinning in a growing vortex, reaching its gaping mouth to draw her in. Glass splintered and flew, cables whipped and left scars on the walls, and an increasing cacophony of destruction warned her just how quickly the demon-driven whirlwind from hell was moving.

"Aw, shit! It's the Tasmanian Devil on crack!"

Lena sprinted down the hall ahead of the tornado's pull, preferring not battle demon-driven hardware. _Possessed humans, possessed possessions, what's next, possessed pets? Fucking Caedis! I need a minute here!_

Lena grabbed the doorknob of a sturdy-looking door, only to find it locked. What's more, yellow eyes glared at her from the door itself. "Fuck me, another cursed door!" She whacked the door with her hand, breaking the lock and curse, flung herself into the room and slammed the door shut. Leaning on it with both hands, she quickly sealed the door with a bubble of non-time, preventing any physical thing from moving it. As she listened to metal, plastic and glass slamming into the other side of the door it occurred to her that she could finally catch her breath.

Lena turned around and stood in eternity for a moment, noticing the three sleeping figures on the floor of what was apparently a conference room. The werewolf curse rested lightly, just a shadow of the wolf, on the young man who still had his soul. The ghost, curiously enough, was sleeping as if she were still human. Perhaps she didn't know any better, didn't realize yet how little she was affected by outside influences, and had been tricked into submission.

Lena remembered the old lesson, taught by her mother long ago. _Believe something will happen and it will. _Mother knew that good and evil began as ideas and gained strength as they gained hold in the mind. This young ghost had allowed herself to believe that Caedis Cruciatus could control her, so it had happened. _Man, is she gonna be pissed off when she finds out._

Reluctantly Lena forced herself to look at the vampire, feeling her stomach heave again as she did. The curse that owned him, bloated and awash in the blood of its victims, was thrown like a wet veil over his body, intrinsically connected to the dried blood on his clothes and skin. She knew the curse was lurking in every dead cell of the obscenity that Yorke had become, waiting to be released from Caedis Cruciatus' enthrallment.

Still she found herself searching out the man beneath the veil, until her disgust and rage and grief nearly overwhelmed her. She would rather face the big 'D' devil than spend a minute in the same room with _that creature._ How he could have chosen _that_ over her…

Closing her eyes, she uttered what was technically a prayer.

"I see your hand in this, and I don't appreciate it. This sucks big hairy balls. I hate it and I hate you. Feel free to call me up for punishment." She paused, then opened her eyes to find herself still facing the vampire, along with the werewolf and ghost. "Shit. I guess this IS my punishment."

Just as Lena stepped forward away from the door and into time, the three sleepers awoke in unison, gasping. The werewolf, dressed in thrift shop jacket and cargo shorts, jumped up and slapped a hand on the scars on his head. "It's here. The wolf's here. This must be real."

The ghost, a natural beauty with long lines and short hair, cursed with a Scottish accent. "Shite! I still dinnae have sex!"

The vampire spoke as he rose gracefully from the floor. "We can rectify that, if you wish." He flicked his eyebrows and gave the ghost a lopsided smile that carried all the allure of Lucifer at his finest. Yorke was still a gorgeous man, damn him.

"Never!" the ghost snapped.

"Hello, who's this?" Yorke noticed Lena and turned to regard her cautiously. "May we help you?"

Lena felt the blood burn in her face as she ground back the curses she wanted to fling at the arrogant bastard. "Actually, I'm here to help you. How'd you wake up on your own, did you figure it out? No matter, it saves us a step and a lot of explaining. You've been in a group dream, right?"

"How'd you know that?" the werewolf asked, raising his voice a notch. "And what's that racket in the hallway?"

"Would you believe a giant Tasmanian devil made of demon-controlled electronics?"

"Yeah, I would. They after you?"

"Fraid so." Lena held out her hand to the werewolf. "Lena, demon hunter."

"Tom. Werewolf. This here's Alex, she's a ghost. And that's Hal, a vampire," he said as he shook Lena's hand.

"I know what you are, glad to have names, though," she said briskly. "So, I'm expecting Caedis Cruciatus any time now. Can you tell me why it kept you three prisoners?"

"Who?" asked Alex. "You mean the Devil? We're here because we tried to kill him."

"Caedis Cruciatus is the name of the demon you two unleashed," Lena said, pointing at Tom and Yorke. "It's just pretending to be a big 'D' Devil."

"And doing a good job of it," Yorke said smoothly, looking Lena over carefully. "Caedis Cruciatus hmm? Latin name, female for blood, male for pain. Nicely descriptive, very PC. Do demons all have Latin names?"

"Depends. According to the Catholic Church, everything has a Latin name and nothing else will do. For all I know, the dickhead calls itself Fred or Bertha. Either way, it's coming. I sent out a great big Batsignal."

"Batsignal?" Yorke looked puzzled.

"Inside joke. You'll see when it gets here," Lena turned her attention to Tom and Alex. "Do you still want to kill it? There's a blood ritual, right?"

"Yeah, but we all die when we do it," Tom replied. "so Hal took a pass."

"You all die? That's bullshit. Who told you that?" Lena asked.

"In the original ritual, all parties died except the 'demon' as you say. It was trapped in a human body." Yorke answered.

"You were there? How did you survive?"

"My blood wasn't part of the ritual," he replied. "Another vampire was involved."

"Yeah, but the Devil, or whatever, told us that we would all die together if we did it," said Alex.

Lena couldn't resist an eye roll at that one. "You know that demons are liars and tricksters, right? And don't get me started on vampires!" She raised her voiced to match the increasingly frantic sounds of demon-possessed debris slamming against the other side of the door. "You won't die. If done properly, a blood ritual sends the demon back to the pit while everyone else lives happily ever after, so to speak. As long as the parties who agree to participate use their own blood…"

Lena turned as she realized that the noises were no longer coming from the door, but from the wall, which she had not sealed. _Shit, somebody's getting smart. _She watched as plasterboard heaved and rippled, then blew inward, followed by a spinning flood of metal, glass, and wire. Tom leaped behind the conference table and flipped it on its side. Yorke helped once he realized the plan. Alex did a ghost sweep and shoved the table against the far wall before joining the other two behind it. "C'mon!" she yelled at Lena.

Lena wasn't about to run again. She'd had time to assess the threat and decide how to handle it. She stood her ground, grey satin-steel wings unfurled, swords whirling as she minced everything within reach. She felt herself getting whipped by cables, gouged by metal edges, cut by glass. Her adrenalin pumping, she laughed and cursed and goaded her enemies. "God I've missed this! Retirement my ass! C'mon you feeble fuckers! Bring it!"

Hal, hiding behind the table with Tom and Alex, finally recognized Lena for what she was: Seraphin Nepos, a descendant of the Nephilim of old, great monsters who were born when angels took humans for mates. The original Nephilim were destroyed long ago, but the blood line remained, gradually weakening with the millennia but still occasionally producing a creature with a hint of the original Nephilim power. _Seraphin Nepos,_ he thought. _The antithesis and sworn enemy of all cursed beings, especially those who chose to be cursed. Bugger._ Hal tucked himself into a corner, wracking his brain for a way to keep himself from becoming proper dead in the near future. His enemies, including Tom and Alex if he wasn't careful, seemed to be forming a queue. And the Seraphin was bleeding, he noticed. Hal had to get out of there.

Alex and Tom, meanwhile, peeked over the table in awe. "Is she crazy, d'ya think?" Alex asked.

"Nah, she's dead clever," Tom replied. "She's drawing their attention, keepin' 'em away from us. She's brave, ain't she?"

"She said the demon Cady-Crudy-something was coming back. We should get ready for the ritual. Tom, your blood belt is gone." Alex looked around for the ammunition belt full of blood vials that Tom had brought with him, but it was gone, probably taken by whoever moved them into this room.

"Hal and me will give fresh blood," Tom said. "Probably better that way. Can you find a cup or somethin' to hold it in? And maybe a knife? Can you rent-a-ghost still?"

Alex disappeared from behind the table and reappeared a few seconds later carrying a coffee cup with the slogan 'I'm a bitch. Deal with it.' She handed it to Tom. "Now a knife."

"Never mind the knife," Tom spied a glass shard stuck into the wall behind them, dislodged it carefully and wiped it on his shorts. He turned to the vampire. "Okay Hal, let's get ready."

"I politely decline to participate." Hal checked around the end of the table to see the chaos diminishing as Lena dealt with the tail end of the vortex while balancing on piles of coal dust and electronic rubble. He slipped between the table legs and edged toward a window that had been shattered by flying plasterboard.

"Hal! Get back here!" Tom yelled, as Alex prepared to rent-a-ghost after him.

Lena turned at Tom's voice and, realizing that the vampire was trying to escape, clapped her hands together, melding her two swords into one. She raised her left arm over her head and began twirling what became a bola as it took shape. She threw it at the vampire, and the weighted cord wrapped neatly around him and dropped him in his tracks. Alex rent-a-ghosted the trussed up Yorke, black-eyed and hissing, back to Tom, who promptly knocked him unconscious with a heavy, ball-and-claw chair leg.

With a WHOOMP the roof peeled off the television station, ceiling tiles flew, and Caedis Cruciatus dropped into the room, its great leathery wings scattering debris everywhere. The demon's human host was barely visible through the transmogrification that was occurring with its growing strength. Huge, twisted, dirty crimson and oozing blood as if stuffed with it, Caedis leered at Lena and lunged, dug its talons into her chest and threw her through the wall into the next office. The beast roared with foul joy, blood and pus spewing from between its fangs, as it strode toward its stunned victim, tearing through remnants of plasterboard and metal to reach her.

Behind the table Tom sliced Hal's arm and his own, holding the cup so that their blood mingled. Alex, afraid for Lena's survival, grabbed the cup and leaped to her feet.

"Hey blood boy! Watch this!" As the demon spun, tail whipping, Alex drained the cup and flung it to the floor. Screeching in fury, Caedis Cruciatus spun back around and leaped at Lena, desperate to kill its nemesis before its strength waned.

Lena flipped onto her feet, swords ready and a grin on her face. She had tricked the demon into dropping its guard.

"Gotcha!" She sidestepped and decapitated the demon, watching it resume human form as it fell and rolled. Quickly she quartered both the body and head of what now looked like a well-dressed pensioner and watched as the demon within was dispersed into brick-red dust the color of dried blood. The pieces of human body dissolved in a putrid soup—the pensioner had apparently been kept alive only by the demon's energy.

Lena saw the cloud of evil that had followed Caedis congeal into streams and flow back through the open roof, yellow and red eyes glinting. Caedis' minions were on the run, weak and leaderless. _Rats leaving a sinking ship. Easy pickings._ Lena was eager for the hunt; her killer instinct was raging; her injuries were already healed.

As she clambered back through the wall she had been thrown through just moments before, Lena felt the building shudder and began to shift and buckle. _Well shit-a-brick. It figures._ She saw Tom and Alex celebrating their victory with a combination of hugging, hollering, and hopping, but as walls began to collapse around them, escape replaced victory in their thoughts.

"Go!" Tom shoved Alex away from him. The ghost grabbed the unconscious vampire once again and vanished. Lena flew to the werewolf as he fought his way toward the window that Yorke had planned to use. She grabbed him by his coat collar and got them both out, scraping her wings slightly as the wall fell after them.

After setting Tom down next to Alex and her 'baggage' near the edge of the street, Lena shook herself all over, dust and detritus flying from her. Folding her wings into invisibility, she settled momentarily into normal human mode. "Check your coat for blood. Mine is poisonous to you," she told Tom.

"Why?" Tom peeled off his coat, looking for flecks of Lena's blood.

Lena shrugged. "Just who I am. It isn't you personally, it's the werewolf curse. Poisonous to vampires too." She pointed at Yorke. "What will you do with him?"

"We'll take him home, try another detox, maybe get it right this time," Tom said.

Alex looked at the werewolf for a moment then nodded. "One more chance, then. I'll give it a go." She turned to Lena. "Thanks for everything. We couldnae have done it without you. I'm still not sure what you did…"

Lena shrugged off the compliment and the question. She was already moving. "I'll explain later when I get my bola. Where do you live?"

"Barry Island. An old B&B called Honolulu Heights. Where you goin?" Tom called after her as she lifted off the ground. He got no reply as she disappeared, except a fading chorus. "We all live in a yellow submarine…"


	3. Chapter 3 Home Again

Tom and Alex watched Lena disappear into the sky, still not sure what she was or where she was going, or for that matter how she was getting there. They saw her wings, but she slipped through the air and vanished so quickly that wings couldn't fully explain it. The two friends looked at each other questioningly, then turned at the sound of the television station's final collapse. The ground shook and the final cloud of dust billowed into the air as the last two exterior walls fell. In the midst of the rubble a lone conference room door stood upright. It would prove to be a challenge for the wrecking crew when cleanup began next month.

As the dust began to drift and settle, Tom pointed down the road in the direction they had come and said, "That way." He took off running and Alex picked up Mr. Creepy, as she was now calling Hal in her head, and rent-a-ghosted with him out of range of the dust storm. Tom trotted up to them and stopped.

"Where's the car?" Alex asked.

"Dunno, Hal had it. I ran over. I reckon I can run home." Tom shrugged.

"Or we could find a car. There's bound to be one around with keys in it. I'll get one and you can wait here with Mr. Creepy."

"Alex, you can't steal a car!" Tom was shocked by her suggestion.

"I'm not sure its stealing if the owner is dead, Tom. I'll just be a few minutes."

"You can't drive a car! Someone will see it and-"

"Tom, I don't think there's anyone left **to** see it," Alex pointed out sadly. She disappeared, leaving Tom and his tied-up, unconscious vampire mate.

_Too bad we can't just leave Hal by the road, _Alex thought. She was fed up with good Hal, bad Hal, even human Hal was getting on her nerves. _He had every opportunity to shag me and he was too polite to make a move. I don't reckon I'll be giving him another chance. _

She quickly found an abandoned Ford Focus and drove it back to where Tom was waiting. After loading Hal in the boot they headed for Honolulu Heights. Tom had started to argue when Alex popped the boot latch, but he was tired of Hal too, and decided it would be easiest all around to have him locked up for the trip home. The last thing he needed was a screaming vampire trying to chew his way through the upholstery while Tom was concentrating on the road.

The drive back to Barry was eerily quiet as they were quite literally the only thing moving within view. Tom had to work around abandoned vehicles here and there but they saw no living people or ghosts until they reached the roundabout where Gladstone Road meets with the Cardiff Road. There the way was blocked by two Men in Grey and a familiar Lexus. Apparently Mr. Rook had upgraded his mode of transportation and was allowing his car to be used by others.

"One moment," MiG One demanded of Tom as he carefully approached the driver's side window. He stopped, pulled a photo from his pocket, and studied it for a moment, then looked from the photo to Tom. "Tom McNair?"

"Yes sir."

"Are you travelling alone?"

"No sir, me mate Hal's in the boot and Alex is right here. You can't see her 'cause she's a ghost." Tom winced as Alex punched him in the ribs.

"Don't say anything you don't have to!" she whispered fiercely.

"And Hal is Hal Yorke, the vampire, correct?" The MiG continued calmly, as if this sort of conversation was normal for him.

"Yes sir."

"Mr. Rook has issued orders. You are to be seen safely home and guarded until he can reach you. He wishes to speak to you about certain…events that are occurring."

"There ain't no reason for that, it's all over now-OW!" Tom got another vicious jab in the ribs from Alex.

"Excuse me?" the MiG was curious.

But Tom had learned his lesson and wasn't saying any more. "Thank you for your kind offer of help. Tell Mr. Rook that we'll be happy to receive him when he calls."

The MiG's moved the Lexus aside, allowing Tom to pass in the Focus. "Good job, Tom. You sounded very proper," Alex said as she turned to watch the Lexus following them.

"Always be polite and helpful to the authorities when it ain't you they're after. McNair said. I guess they don't care about borrowed cars and aught." Tom breathed a sigh of relief as they reached Honolulu Heights. Alex discreetly took Hal inside while Tom checked briefly for signs of life. Although there was no traffic noise, Tom heard some children playing down the way, and a couple arguing about whether it was safe to leave their house. Maybe there were more people left than he thought.

He turned to look at the old B&B, knowing what was waiting for him inside. They would need to find a nice, sturdy chair. _This could take a whil_e, he thought as he unconsciously squared his shoulders and strode toward the house.

Alex was already at work getting the restraint area prepared for another round of Hal Wars. She had cleared away Hal's bloodstained work shirt and the ruined leather strap that Natasha had cut while under Hatch's spell. The blood on the carpet would have to be dealt with too, or Mr. Creepy would tear the house down to get to it. _I'm so fucking tired of this, _she thought._ If it weren't for Tom, I'd be looking for Lady Mary right now. I could use a nice, safe, insanity-filled adventure._

"Rook's men are parked across the street," Tom said as he came in. He looked at Hal, still unconscious. "I musta really clonked him a good one."

"I wonder if it has anything to do with the magic rope," Alex said. "Whatever, I'm glad for the quiet. We'll get plenty of noise from Mr. Creepy before this is over."

Tom winced at her use of the name. "Alex…"

"Oi! He didn't kiss you while he was all blooded up, allright! I can call him whatever I want. D'you have another strap? We're short one here."

"I'll check the basement," Tom headed toward the stairs.

"Got it," Alex said as she reappeared with a leather strap left over from the Crumb Experiment. She had rent-a-ghosted to the basement and back before he had taken three steps. At Tom's startled look, she smiled sheepishly. "What? I missed my superpowers, okay?"

"Yeah, I missed the wolf some too, you know? I felt kinda empty and weak like." Tom was relieved to tell Alex now that he knew she felt the same. He had been afraid to mention it while they were 'human.'

Tom began the process of unwinding Hal from the bola so they could get him secured in the chair. It was a short process, as the bola refused to budge, no matter how hard Tom tugged on it. Alex came to help and got the same response.

"Shite! I guess it really is a magic rope! Looks like he's stuck with it until the demon hunter comes back for it." Alex was smiling a bit too much at the thought of Hal's discomfiture when he woke up. Tom frowned at her.

"How are we to strap him into the chair when we can't move his arms and legs?" he said.

"I dunno, let's just set him in it and see what works."

They maneuvered Hal into a sitting position in the chair and found that his chest could still be strapped down in the usual manner. When Alex took hold of Hal's right hand and tried to tug it toward a strap the bola loosened and shifted just enough to allow it. Tom had no luck with the other hand, but when Alex came around the chair the bola shifted again, allowing her to strap both of Hal's wrists to the arms of the chair. She moved to his legs and was able to strap each of them individually as well. Tom watched, shaking his head.

"Maybe it only does what a lady wants," he said, "or maybe it just don't like me."

Alex joined him and they stood together in front of the vampire, watching as he slowly began to awaken. Alex looked at Tom. "I don't know how that 'bola' works, but I'll bet if he makes it out of the chair he won't make it two steps more."

"Reckon it's a good job we've got it then," Tom said.

Hal, apparently fully awake at last, opened his eyes and addressed them. "Tom. Alex. I assume that things ended well, as we are all still here. I'd worry it was another dream, but of course, this" he shook his bound arms "tells me that I am firmly entrenched in reality."

"Back home safe and sound, mate," Tom said with a touch of false cheerfulness. "Hatch is gone for good. Now we just need to get you sobered up and back to your old self, right?"

"Actually, Tom, my old self is right here, and isn't going away. Tying me to a chair won't change me back into your Hal. It's too late."

"Excuse me for sayin' this, but I'm not sure I believe you, mate," Tom replied. "You aren't known for truth-tellin'. I reckon we'll give it a go and see for ourselves." He looked at Alex, who nodded her agreement.

"Must you persist in this delusion? As I've already explained, your friend is dead." Hal was beginning to get annoyed at their persistence. "Oh, don't get me wrong, your Hal tried very hard to hang on, for your sakes as much as his own. Your belief in him was quite touching, really. And when it ended, so did he."

Alex and Tom exchanged guilty looks as they remembered the last time they were all three in the house. Neither one of them had believed that Hal had tried to save Natasha and had chosen instead to accuse him of killing her and drinking her blood. Hatch had played them all flawlessly.

Hal read their expressions and continued with a touch of condescension in his tone. "No reason to feel badly, chaps. It was only a matter of time, you just moved things along. I would be thanking you both for the help actually, if it weren't for your inconvenient insistence on tying me to a fucking chair!"

He fought violently against the straps, only to have Lena's bola tighten around him, squeezing the breath from his lungs. He stopped struggling and the bola loosened. _Shit! This is new. I may be in serious trouble with this thing, _he thought. Although fear snaked its way through the rage and thirst that consumed him, Hal continued to present a confident front.

"How long will it take, Tom, for you to realize that I'm telling the truth? Six months? Six years? Six decades? How long are you willing to continue this charade of friendship? Get it through your thick head! I'm back. There's nothing you can do, nothing anybody can do to change it now." Hal paused to control his rising temper. "So what say you release me, we have a hearty handshake for old time's sake, and I take my leave of you both."

Seeing the misery on Tom's face was too much for Alex. "I say we stake him now and be done with it. C'mon Tom, you've done enough for this bastard. He doesn't deserve your loyalty or your friendship. We can do better without him, just the two of us."

"Alex! How can you say that? It's Hal! Look, it's Hal." Tom waved his hand at the watchful vampire. Alex's comments had caught both men off guard.

"This isn't Hal, this is a monster living in a dead body. Tom, he lied to us, he drank blood, for god's sake Tom! He suckled on Natasha's thigh like some twisted evil child clinging to his mum! The blood will always win, Tom. And more people will die, if we don't accept the truth and end it, now." Alex reached for a stake tucked into the bookcase across the room, and it flew into her hand. "I'll do it. He can't hurt me any more."

Tom was about to speak when the trio heard a screech of tires and slamming of car doors out front. As Tom ran to the window, Hal took a deep breath. "Our acquaintance Mr. Rook is here," he said, smelling the Man in Grey before Tom could see him. Alex retreated to the fireplace, stake in hand, waiting. The resolute look on her face told Hal that he had received a delay, not a permanent stay of execution.

Tom met Dominic Rook at the door. Rook's usually spotless grey suit was disheveled, his already-slender features were wan and drawn, his piercing blue eyes were dull and exhausted.

"Tom. I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you. And the others are here? Safe? No longer under the devil's control?"

"Yes, Mr. Rook, we are all here. Do come in, you look knackered." Tom noticed three MiG's watching them, prepared to move in at a word from their commander-in-chief. From the looks of them, their grey business suits had become uniforms worn in battle with a formidable enemy.

Tom continued in a voice loud enough for them all to hear. "Hatch is dead. The apocalypse is over. You can relax now."

"Oh thank god!" Rook swayed on his feet and caught himself, the relief almost too much for him. He really didn't appreciate all of these emotions running around in his head. "Are you sure? We saw the creature flying in the direction of Cardiff. I have a team en route to the television station now."

"You won't find much left," Tom said. "It got kind of blown up. Not by us this time," he added hastily. He didn't want the Men in Grey to get the wrong idea and suspect him of having a dangerous new habit.

"Tom. Mr. McNair, would you be willing to tell me what happened? We need to document his destruction and how it came about; the information will be an invaluable addition to the archive." Rook was trying to regain his professional demeanor.

"Sure, if you'll tell us what we missed. We slept through most of it, I reckon. Only woke up in time to see the ending." Tom was oblivious to Rook's puzzled look. He got that a lot from people.

Hal's voice called out from the interior of the house. "Do come in, Rook. Don't you know it is rude to keep your host standing on the doorstep indefinitely?" As Rook entered the house, Hal continued speaking with the air of a man who was used to being in charge. "You are relatively safe here; I assure you that I won't bite. Well, I would, but I am currently not in a position to do so. I cannot vouch for Alex, however. She may still have a dead fish or some superglue lying about." Hal nodded his head in the direction of the fireplace where Alex was standing.

Rook threw a startled look that way, unable to stop the reflex although he knew that he would see nobody there. He nodded slightly in Alex's direction as he acknowledged the identity of the poltergeist who had plagued the archive. "We've dealt with worse," he said reservedly.

"So you'd like to know what happened to good Captain Hatch." The vampire maintained control of the room in spite of his undignified position. "Tell me, Rook, have you ever heard the term Seraphin Nepos?"

Rook sank clumsily into a stool at the bar and stared at the vampire, looking for any sign of deceit. Rook decided that Hal was telling the truth; he reached into the inner pocket of his coat, pulled out a walkie-talkie, and snapped, "I need a scribe with a recorder in here. Now!"

Footsteps thudded up the walk and a man and woman burst through the front door of Honolulu Heights, looking as ready to fight as to write.

"We have a type double-zero sighting. Prepare to record." Dominic Rook couldn't control the excitement in his voice, although he did his best to keep his professionalism intact for the sake of his subordinates. Each MiG got out a mini-recorder as well as a small notepad and pen. They looked awkwardly around the room with their hands full, not sure where to go or what to expect.

"Here, we'll set you up," Tom said as he went to move a small two-person table and chair set from across the room. "C'mon Alex." Tom looked toward the fireplace where she was still standing and the MiG's gazes followed, seeing nobody there.

The ghost rolled her eyes, pocketed the stake, and rent-a-ghosted to the table. Grabbing it with a clearly insincere smile she moved it to a position where it was a safe distance from Hal but centrally located for the pending conversation. The MiGs couldn't help jumping as the table disappeared from across the room and reappeared a few feet away from them.

"Thank you Ms. Millar," Rook spoke in the direction of the table as if he were quite used to carrying on conversations with invisible beings.

Tom followed with the two chairs, setting them down. "Would you like tea, or maybe coffee?" Tom was doing his best to be a good host.

Alex found the whole scenario ridiculous beyond comprehension. "I'll just go make some tea for us all then, shall I? Maybe find some biscuits that aren't too stale?" she asked sarcastically as she headed for the kitchen. _Not that I can talk to these blokes anyway, _she though. She was, frankly, glad for a few minutes alone to get herself together after the chaos of the few couple of hours. Or was it days? Surely not weeks? Alex had no idea when in time she was anymore.

"Alex is just going to get some tea and maybe biscuits," Tom said as the swinging door to the kitchen opened and closed. "We aren't sure how long we've been gone, but there's probably somethin' good to eat, still." He looked at Rook hopefully.

"It has only been two days since we saw each other in Cardiff." Rook, preferring understatement whenever possible, made no mention of the volatile nature of their last encounter.

"Well that's alright then," Tom said, relieved. "Not much damage done in just two days, I reckon."

"Our latest estimates are that approximately 5 million people committed suicide and another quarter-million were killed by the devil and an apparent horde of spirits that joined him." Rook paused to give Tom and Hal a chance to accept the staggering number of deaths before continuing.

"It would have been worse if you hadn't delayed the devil long enough for us to sever the satellite feed. Fortunately he was only able to broadcast part of his message, so only the weak-minded were lured to their deaths. Makes me question the validity of the emergency broadcast system as a whole," Rook mused, "but that is another day's problem."

Rook's mobile phone hummed from within a pocket. He answered the call, apparently from his team on the ground at the television station. Rook stepped into the front hallway as he listened to the report, murmuring an occasional response. Suddenly he swung around, looking at Tom and Hal while repeating what he was hearing on the phone.

"A door? An interior door, standing upright in the middle of the wreckage. You're certain it isn't supported by something?"

"That's the room we were in," Tom said. "Me and Alex saw it when we was leaving."

"Apparently the Seraphin Nepos put some sort of seal on the door to prevent demon-possessed equipment from breaking it down," Hal added.

"I see," Rook said. "That explains why one side is embedded with bits of metal and glass and the other side completely clean." Rook turned back to his phone. "The door has been affected by a type double-zero. Document its appearance but do not attempt to disturb it."

Rook's call ended as the kitchen doors swung open and a disembodied tea tray floated over to the bar and set itself down. The aroma of strong, freshly brewed tea made as much of an impact on the weary warriors in the room as did the nature of its arrival. The tray was packed full: teapot, sugar, milk, four mugs, hobnobs, and chocolate digestives.

"You want the usual, Tom?" Alex asked as she reached for the teapot.

"I reckon we can fix our own, thanks Alex," Tom replied, picking it up for himself. "You don't have to play hostess. Unless you want to see to Hal."

"I didn't think Mr. Creepy was interested in drinking **tea**," Alex huffed as she moved out of the way of Rook, who was reaching carefully for a mug. She looked at Hal, who arched an eyebrow and responded with a wicked half-smile.

"How could I resist being served tea and hobnobs by a lady of your incomparable charm?"

"Bugger!" Alex disappeared into the kitchen to make his tea.

Tom and his guests fell to, thankful for the simple camaraderie of tea after the horrors of the last few days. Alex watched them from the pass-through window as Hal's tea brewed and considered the courage and sacrifice these grey-suited soldiers must have displayed in defense of humanity. How many of their fellows died along the way? _I'll bet they haven't eaten lately,_ she thought. Living with a houseful of men had taught Alex the priorities. She rooted through the kitchen and put together a platter of ham, cheese, and boiled eggs, threw most of a loaf of bread on for good measure, and took it to the bar.

Rook couldn't help jumping a bit when the platter appeared next to the tea tray, but he recovered almost immediately. "Ms. Millar, you are an angel," he said sincerely. He and his troops were just beginning to realize how hungry they were.

"Tell 'em to eat up, Tom," Alex said. "They needn't be shy on my account." She popped back into the kitchen for Hal's tea, black with a splash of water. Normality had suddenly become very important to her, even the weird normality of a tied-up vampire in need of tea.

"Alex says to help yourselves," Tom spoke for her as he slapped together a sandwich for himself. They ate while watching Hal drink tea through a straw coming out of a floating tea cup. Alex served him silently, kept her charms to herself, and listened intently when Rook began his narrative.


	4. Chapter 4 Storytime

_Much thanks to Saemay for her beautiful introduction to Istanbul, which influences this and following chapters!_

_Also much thanks to 0positiv, for her gentle reminder that not everyone has the same background or interest in theology/mythology as me. I have begun adding a bit of character explanation and background with that consideration in mind._

"We engaged the devil at the television station," Rook began, "and thought we might have the manpower to defeat him there, but he escaped in an estate wagon apparently owned by the station. We gave chase until he abandoned the car near Gloucester and took to the air. Apparently his strength grew along with the number of deaths he caused." Rook paused, shivering at the memory of the creature that had flung the roof off of the estate wagon and flown away.

"We began to be attacked by what can only be described as re-animated corpses that had apparently been taken over by members of the devil's growing entourage." Rook looked slightly uncomfortable while attempting to describe the nature of his enemy. "Spiritual warfare is beyond our purview, I'm afraid," he said with an apologetic smile. "Historically the church has dealt with these matters. We don't have specific categorization for what we have seen, but rather consider it all under the heading of demon possession. That will have to change, of course. Our records of this event must be accurate."

Rook continued his narrative, explaining that they had pursued the devil north, toward Birmingham, and had found themselves increasingly under attack and unable to slow down the mindless slaughter of people along the way.

"Birmingham! Oh god, not the Jaguar plant! Tom, ask him, ask him!" Alex was jumping up and down in agitation.

"Er, sorry to interrupt Mr. Rook, but Alex wants to make sure the Jaguar plant wasn't damaged," Tom felt foolish for asking, and was just a little bit worried about his friend's priorities.

"No, we didn't get that far. We were just to Worcester when he turned back for Cardiff. We assumed that it had something to do with you three. Apparently he called his 'minions' with him because several thousand moving corpses suddenly dropped in their tracks." Rook frowned. "It will be quite a challenge to sort them all out and return them to their proper communities for burial."

"Now, Mr. Yorke, if you wouldn't mind picking up the narrative and telling us what happened at the station…" Rook turned to look at Hal, who was now finished with his tea.

"Of course. Before I begin, however, I'd like you tell us about your personal involvement with Captain Hatch, prior to his attempt at an apocalypse." Hal's smile only increased at Rook's apparent unease. "We would like to know how your behavior may have been linked to our own…recent challenges."

Tom was initially surprised by Hal's idea, but came quickly to agree with it. "Yeah, I'd like hear that too." He stood near Hal with crossed arms and looked at Rook.

Clearly Rook wasn't interested in sharing what he considered a bout of personal and moral weakness with anyone, especially not with those who suffered directly from his actions. It was a fair request, however. "Yes. Agreed. I'd prefer it to be a private conversation, however. Perhaps after the formal inquiry is complete?"

The supernatural trio nodded agreement amongst themselves and Tom sat down on the sofa, joined by Alex as Hal began their story.

The vampire spoke clearly and without emotion of their awakening, the arrival of the Seraphin Nepos, and her subsequent battle with the demonically driven whirlwind. He described the manifestation of her wings and weapons and shared the name she had used for the demon they had been battling. Caedis Cruciatus, a powerful demon but not the devil as they had all believed and that the creature had claimed to be. At that point Hal admitted to being indisposed for the duration of the battle and turned the story over to Tom.

Tom tried his best to model his narration after Hal's but found himself being stopped and questioned repeatedly by the MiG's. Apparently he didn't have the gift of gab, and it didn't help that Alex was sitting next to him giving him prompts and correcting him. When Tom described the demon's massive leathery wings Hal finally understood something that had been niggling at the back of his mind.

"Ah, hence the need for a Batsignal," he said to himself.

"What?" One of the scribes, apparently a Batman fan, jumped eagerly at the phrase.

"The Seraphin Nepos told us that Caedis would be there soon because she had sent out a 'great big Batsignal.' I didn't understand the reference at the time, but now that I've heard Tom's description, it makes sense." Hal explained. "Sorry for the interruption Tom, please continue."

Tom finished his story with a description of Lena flying away, apparently in pursuit of unseen things, as the building fell apart behind them. He didn't mention the borrowed car that brought them back to Honolulu Heights.

Rook looked thoughtfully at the bola still wrapped around Hal. "When the Seraphin Nepos returns for her bola, would you please give her a message from me? I'd like to respectfully request a meeting." His question was directed at Tom, as Hal was starting to look twitchy and haggard.

"We can give her the message. Not sure she'll much care one way or t'other," Tom replied.

"Rook," Hal spoke quietly. "Tread lightly with this one. She may be from the Victrix bloodline. She's very powerful." Turning to Tom and Alex, he explained further, "Victrix, Latin for conqueror, was the name the Christian church gave to what it considered the most powerful Nephilim in history. The church was the first organization to attempt to document Nephilim and their offspring, the Seraphin Nepos."

"Your suggestion is noted," Rook said, choosing to ignore Tom's confused look and avoid further explanation of the history of type double-zero creatures. He turned and addressed his two subordinates. "Please return to the archive immediately and complete the process of documenting what you have heard here. It is of the highest importance, but must be done swiftly. We have a long road ahead of us before this country is set to rights again." Rook saw the two MiG's to the door before turning back to address the trio.

"Thank you for your cooperation in disclosing what must have been a very traumatic experience," he began.

"Right, and now you're gonna tell us what you and Hatch were up to at the hotel," Tom interrupted.

Rook paused, his hand still on the handle of the not-quite-closed interior door. The handle pulled from his hand as it shut emphatically on its own.

"That was Alex," Hal said. "She doesn't have to actually touch an object, or person, to affect it." A subtle threat entered his voice as he continued, "I think Alex would like for you to tell us **your** story now."

"Ya damn right I do!" she snapped at Rook. "Don't make me get the superglue on your ass. I'll stick you in a chair for good, bucko!"

"She's threatening to superglue you to a chair. Apparently without pants. You might want to step away from the door, unless you'd rather try pantless storytelling. It could be entertaining." Hal was enjoying fanning the flames of conflict between ghost and man, another sign that good Hal was long gone. He would have been working to keep all parties in control of themselves.

Rook visibly collected himself and sat down in one of the chairs previously occupied by his scribes. Resting his hands on the table in front of him, he began.

When Rook left Honolulu Heights nearly an hour later he was shaken, pale and sweaty, hunched as if too weak to walk upright. He made his way to the car where his driver waited impassively. "To the archive," he said as he got in and collapsed against the back seat. He had never been to a Catholic confession, but what he had experienced must have been far worse than any private admission of guilt to a disinterested priest. He had admitted atrocious acts of treachery to those he had plotted against, fully aware that they could easily kill him, or worse, if they chose to do so. He hoped they would accept the penance he had offered instead.

Dominic Rook had been forced to see himself more clearly than he had ever cared to, forced to speak truths aloud that he could barely whisper to himself. His blind passion for the merits of his occupation and for the Department of Domestic Defense had led not only to his personal downfall but to the deaths of those who were supposed to be under his protection.

Rook had told them everything, even the shameful way he had used Natasha as a pawn in Hatch's game. He saw Natasha as a representative of the millions who had died, all people he was supposed to protect, all people who suffered when he decided that his job was more valuable than their lives. He acknowledged his own guilt in using her as a wedge between Hal and Tom, the wedge that led to the ruin of their friendship, Hal's descent into darkness, and Hatch's rise to power.

In the presence of those he classified as monsters, Rook realized that he was possibly the most monstrous thing in the room. His arrogance gone, his belief system shattered, Rook saw Hal Yorke and Tom McNair as worthy of his concern. He accepted his own share of responsibility for Bobby's death and admitted his betrayal of the werewolf, who had trusted him with his life. He admitted that a system of types is the least effective way of judging the merits of those who are or were at one time human.

Finally, he admitted that the Men in Grey were not servants of the public but servants of an illusion. While the illusion of safety had its merits, it could never again be allowed to outweigh the protection of human life. Rook spoke for the first time of the idea that had been building within him over the last two days: a complete restructuring of the department to include greater acceptance of and cooperation with any supernaturals who chose to live in a manner that placed human safety above all other concerns. He saw it as the only way to atone for his crimes against decency, as he put it.

Rook had asked Tom, Hal, and Alex for the chance to live long enough to make things right in the only way he knew how. He had left Honolulu Heights with their promise to give him a chance to rebuild the Men in Grey. As he neared the archive Rook pulled himself together, mentally and physically. Out of destruction and chaos would rise a better, more intelligent, more discerning department. He only hoped that he was ready for the challenge.

# # #

Lena didn't make it back to Wales for nearly two weeks. She wasn't stalling; she was just busy making the world a better place. She chased demons until the trails ran cold; her lungs were full of coal dust and her wings were disheveled. Her clothes were blood-stained tatters, and she was filthy and tired. She finally came to rest in Istanbul, where members of her by-now-very-extended family welcomed and sheltered her.

It was early evening when Lena dropped into the central courtyard of her old friend Ammon's riad*. Ammon and his family lived in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, the area of the oldest settlement in the region, with a documented history that reached back to 5500 BC. Ammon, a Seraphin Nepos and Lena's oldest relative still on earth, could fill in the gaps in the historical record if he chose. In fact, he suspected that some of the bits of ceramic and jewelry currently on display in museums had been dug out of his old rubbish pile.

He had settled along the coast of the Sea of Marmara before it had its name and had greeted each civilization that followed in its turn: Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Christian, and Muslim. He had grown wealthy by investing in maritime trade and in land, and his family had grown and spread throughout Anatolia and into Europe and Africa. He had married several times through the millennia, allowing himself to 'age' along with each wife, to enjoy his children and grandchildren, and to 'retire from the world' following the inevitable death of his human partner.

Now bearing the identity of a middle-aged affluent Turkish businessman, Ammon reclined on a couch in the loggia that encompassed his blue-and-white marble courtyard. He loved listening to the water running through the traditional Moorish blue-mosaic fountain. He enjoyed feeling the trace of moving air that rustled the foliage and stirred the perfume from the many flowering plants that graced his home.

He was almost dozing when he heard the soft thud of Lena's feet landing on marble. He recognized the sound immediately, even though it had been decades since he had last heard it. The smell of coal dust and blood came sharply on the breeze created when her wings spread to soften her landing. He leaped to his feet and greeted Lena instantly, calling for his wife Leylak to come at once.

"May I rest here, cousin?" she asked as she allowed Ammon to look deeply into her eyes. Lena did not hide herself from her trusted friend. They used the term 'cousin' because their exact relationship couldn't be traced; he was actually a nephew of some kind, many times removed. Lena had been born early enough in human history that she was related to most people from the region of her birth. In fact, Ammon had attempted to play Six Degrees of Lena at one time but gave up when she refused to cooperate.

"Of course! Your rooms are ready for you, as always. Come, let us help you." Ammon gently hugged her and offered his shoulder for her head to rest upon. "You look wretched. Even your wings are a mess!"

"I know. They've been serving as shields and weapons lately. Got into a running battle with a host of fucking demons!"

"Please, cousin, watch your language if you can," Ammon chided gently as his family gathered. Along with Leylak, his wife of 32 years, several of his grandchildren had come running. They stopped in the shade of the loggia and huddled together, watching their grandfather hug what appeared to be a fallen angel.

Leylak carried several soft cloths, which she used to brush down Lena's wings as she rested against Ammon. The two women hadn't seen each other since Lena had attended their youngest daughter Pinar's wedding nearly five years ago, but they were genuinely fond of each other. Leylak was calmly competent, good-natured and warm-hearted as well as beautiful. She ran her household and her family with grace and wit and everyone who met her left feeling better about themselves, except those who had too high an opinion of themselves to begin with. Leylak could be a great leveler of egos when the need arose.

She carefully cleaned Lena's wings and resettled feathers that had been knocked askew. Although they looked like bird wings from a distance, the wings of a Seraphin Nepos were much stronger, the individual feathers made of a flexible steel-like substance that, when interlaced properly, were nearly impenetrable. They were also formidable weapons that could send an enemy flying with a single flick.

Leylak sang to herself as she worked, as a way to ease her weary friend and calm her grandchildren's fears at the same time. She had cared for Ammon's wings twice since they married, both times following battles with Jinn* that had nearly killed him. His wings were less sturdy than Lena's and had been less effective because of it. She was glad that her husband was seldom called away on Seraphin Nepos business.

"You don't have to do this, Leylak. I can take care of myself," Lena protested mildly. She was slightly uncomfortable with someone else touching her wings. _A few swift shakes and a little preening, that's all I need, _she thought.

"I know you can, but you are a guest and we have a standard of hospitality that I intend to maintain," Leylak replied with a smile. "There, that's all I can do, I think."

She stepped back as Lena shook her wings a bit and folded them into invisibility. "Thanks, that feels so much better! I'm sorry to drop in on you like this, but I'm a gnarly mess and need a place to clean up and get some sleep. Ammon said my rooms are available?"

"Always. We are happy to see you whenever you can visit," Leylak said while handing the dirty cloths to Rya, their middle daughter, who had come to her mother's side. Rya was a Seraphin Nepos of limited strength with no wings of her own, but she had spent her life learning the history of her people and she wasn't afraid of Lena.

"I'll open up your room and draw you a bath," Rya offered, then ran off quickly, calling her two children to follow her.

Lena watched them go, then smiled and turned to Ammon. "Keeping the family together still?"

"Of course! How else can I enjoy them! We have plenty of room here and are very comfortable," he waved an arm around the expansive courtyard to signify the breadth of the two-story loggia and the numerous spacious rooms beyond. "We are completely updated in every way! The best of old and new combined!"

"He talks like we live in a hotel instead of our family home," Leylak chided her husband with a smile. "But he does take very good care of us," she added, giving Ammon a kiss on the cheek as they escorted Lena to her suite, a sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom reserved for their most respected family member.

Rya was already there. She opened up the door and windows onto the courtyard and removed dust covers from the furniture while her older child, an attractive 10-year-old boy, monitored the rising water level in the oversized bathtub. Ammon excused himself and took his grandson with him while the female members of his family tended to Lena.

Within moments Lena found herself immersed in a luxurious bubble bath scented with Oudh oil while Leylak and Rya prepared her room and laid out clean clothes from the wardrobe they kept on hand. They chose an outfit that Rya had recently bought at a Bagdat Avenue shop: soft green cotton tunic and trousers with beading around the neck, sleeves, and ankles.

"This bathroom is gorgeous! I love the blue tile walls and white woodwork," Lena spoke from the depths of the bubbles massed around her head. She sat up slightly and enjoyed the feel of hot water streaming through her thick red-gold hair and back into the tub. "This is much too classy for Ammon's taste. Did you have something to do with it?"

Leylak chuckled as she responded, "It was a group effort. Those of us with taste carried the vote. I'll show you around the house after you've rested. The girls and I have been busy since you were here last."

Rya appeared in the doorway of the bathroom. "Perhaps tomorrow I can take you for a Turkish bath? I know a hamam* that the tourists haven't found yet. No giggling Westerners in bikinis. Oh—sorry, I forgot, you live in the West!" she blushed at the unintended insult.

"It's okay, I know exactly what you mean. 'Tourist' means person who doesn't understand or appreciate our culture and traditions," Lena said, "whereas I simply predate them."

Lena smiled at the Rya's expression. Clearly she was taken aback by Lena's reference to her age.

"Yes, Rya, I am actually older than dirt. Our family timeline goes: me, dirt, your dad, everyone else." She chuckled as she slid into the bubbles once again.

"And I'd love a traditional Turkish bath. I haven't had one since I was here for Pinar's wedding." She sank further into the warm, scented water with a contented sigh.

*riad—traditional Moroccan-style home with limited windows on exterior walls, allowing for extra privacy for the family and protection from the weather. Riads typically have open gardens and/or courtyards in their centers, with access to the house on all four sides. There is also typically a fountain or some other type of water feature in the center of the courtyard.

*Jinn—unseen or hidden spirits, from the Arabic. In this case they were evil in nature.

*hamam—bath house designed specifically for a Turkish bath, with separate facilities and attendants for male and female bathers.


	5. Chapter 5 Room and Board

Lena woke the next morning to find herself nearly restored. When she went into the bathroom she first checked for a dirt ring in the tub; she remembered that she had made a mess the previous evening. The whole bathroom was sparkling clean. _That's what Rya was doing while I was eating. I didn't even notice._ Once again Lena was thankful for Ammon and his family. He had always treated her well.

In true American fashion Lena decided to start her day with a shower, which was even more delightful than she had expected thanks to a spacious shower enclosure and plenty of water pressure. She reveled in the thick towels and soft bath rugs laid in just the right places as she stepped out of the shower and dried off. It was a relief to focus on earthly delights and let her mind rest. She dressed quickly in a loose blouse and *salwar, then followed the melody of the fountain into the courtyard, where she found herself dancing to the rhythm of the water.

Lena danced, always. She had danced since the beginning of time, since her own childhood; she had followed her mother and grandmother as they found music in the wind and water and the sound of their own steps on the ground. Dancing was the most fully human aspect of Lena's character. She danced before there was music, before instruments had been invented; she danced to the rhythm of clapping hands and sticks on stones. She danced to rejoice and to mourn, to shake off the horrors that she faced and to celebrate the victories.

She watched the dances of tribes and cultures and individuals wherever she went and joined when invited, except when the dance was designed to boast. Story-telling through dance is a universal human trait, but Lena kept her stories to herself and never boasted of her exploits. Such things are dangerous for the fragile soul of a Nephilim.

Through the centuries she had learned the intricate steps of formal dance, which is actually more of a social function than an emotional one. In the last few decades Lena had studied modern dance and had found it to be in many ways a re-invention of the wheel by those who hadn't been around to see it invented the first time.

This morning Lena danced in private around the courtyard fountain. With no eyes on her she felt free to relive the story of her battle with Caedis Cruciatus and revel in the joy of the kill once more. She found her movements becoming exultant, violent, angry, and then sorrowful as she replayed the battle and worked through her reaction to seeing Yorke again. Finally she returned to the calm joy of the morning and ended her dance by sitting on the side of the fountain with her fingers trailing in the water. Ammon approached quietly from where he had been watching in the shadows.

"Good morning, cousin. You look much better."

"Thanks, I feel much better."

"Join us for breakfast? We just got some ekmek*, boiled eggs, and goat cheese. Did you hear the baker come by? For that matter, did you hear the call to prayer? It is something to get used to again."

"I love the call to prayer," Lena said. "The voices are like a siren's song calling me home. Christians don't announce their faith publicly. They don't take it seriously enough."

"So, are you a Christian now?" Ammon asked as they went in for breakfast.

"No more than you are a Muslim," Lena answered. "We predate modern religions, cousin. Our faith is cellular."

"True," Ammon replied. "What do you call us? 'A physical manifestation of a metaphysical hypothesis.' Did you ever introduce yourself to Aristotle by the way? He would have loved you." They chuckled as they entered the breakfast room and joined Ammon's family for the first meal of the day.

After breakfast Ammon and Lena met with the members of his family who would be writing the story of her defeat of Caedis Cruciatus. It was the habit of her people to document their history adjacent to world history, with their own unique and private perspective, a habit that Ammon had made his life's work.

Lena had taken Ammon under her wing, so to speak, while he was still a young man; the two had made a formidable team, although his true gifts were in the gentler arts rather than the art of war. He had become the de facto historian of the Seraphin Nepos; he had established his own publishing house to give himself the privacy to publish limited editions of certain texts containing alternate versions of human history. Recently Ammon had been toying with the idea of publishing Seraphin Nepos history as a series of fantasy novels, as immortals and monsters were currently in vogue.

Most of the Seraphin Nepos in that branch of the family were artists and historians, and the few whom Ammon had chosen for today's meeting were nearly aglow with anticipation. Seeing Nephilim Victrix in person was a rare opportunity; listening to her describe a battle was a privilege worth waiting a lifetime for, as she would only speak of it once, and then only to give it into their hands.

The group met in Ammon's library, which was better able to accommodate their numbers than his private office. Lena relaxed in a comfortable leather chair as things were set up. She smiled a bit at the hushed excitement apparent in the room. Three sketch artists would draw as she described events, beginning the works that would ultimately illustrate the story when it went to press. Two scribes would take notes with the purpose of correlating her activity with humanity's documentation of the same events. Two digital recorders were set on side tables on either side of Lena's chair. Her words would be transcribed exactly and the recordings deleted.

As Ammon's personal assistant and one of the kitchen staff brought in the samovar* and prepared tea, Lena let her eyes wander around what was possibly her favorite room in the house. Airy rather than claustrophobic as some libraries are, this space was designed with beauty and scholarship equally in mind. She loved the built-in bookcases of pale wood trimmed with intricately carved designs, but her favorite feature was the huge mosaic inlaid into the marble floor. A combination of girih and semi-representation floral designs in primary colors, it was the highlight of the riad's many architectural delights.

Fortified with strong tea, Lena began the narrative of the destruction of Caedis Cruciatus, presenting it as a lesson in battle tactics for future Seraphin Nepos. She used no personal names, referring only to 'the werewolf', 'the vampire', or 'the ghost' when she spoke of the three beings she had encountered in Wales. When she was finished, she would entertain questions and verify the accuracy of the sketches that were being done as she spoke.

Overall the meeting with Ammon's publishing staff was a success. Her narrative went smoothly and there were few questions. She was interrupted only once, by Ammon's son Sukru.

"Why did you allow yourself to be injured?"

"Why do you think?" Lena answered calmly. The room got very quiet.

"I don't know," Sukru said, frustrated. "You are the Nephilim Victrix. Why would you allow yourself to be injured?"

Lena sighed. "First of all, I'm not much on titles, okay? Secondly, my primary goal is to protect human life, so I use the least force possible to defeat whatever enemy I'm fighting. Big battles cause big messes and put people at big risk, even if they are easier on me and a lot more fun." Lena smiled at the thought. "When I'm in a populated area I try to keep people out of danger as much as possible. They call it minimizing collateral damage, and the more crowded the world gets the harder it is to do. It's all right, though," she added lightly, "I can take the hit."

"But surely your well-being is more important…" Sukru argued.

"Thinking like that will get you a quick ticket to the devil's camp," Lena snapped. She knew all too well what Sukru was talking about, because at one time she had felt the same.

Lena was the living embodiment of the saying, "She doesn't know her own strength." In truth, she wasn't sure what she was capable of because she had never been pushed to her limits. When she was younger Lena was careful in battle and always followed her dad's excellent instructions. Over time she learned how to defeat different types of monsters, demons, and cursed beings, but she was still concerned about being beaten, until she looked back through the millennia and realized that she never had been.

Gradually Lena came to realize that her strength matched whatever challenge she met. She could behead a dragon, unwrap a whirlwind, slaughter a horde of zombies (much more easily than expected), and dispatch any of the multitude of types of demons that threatened humanity. As she dealt with witches and necromancers, poltergeists and giants, and all manner of nature spirits with bad attitudes she came to realize that her belief in her ability to win was at least partially the source of her power to win. She simply had to accept that the spiritual elements of her being were not dependent upon her physical abilities. She took it on faith that she would prevail against any enemy.

As she had recognized the breadth of her powers Lena had encountered the lure of arrogance, of ego, of exalting herself above others. She felt the darkness in her soul stretch and grow stronger, and she realized that ego had destroyed Lucifer* and could easily destroy her. She made a decision not to abuse her powers by using more than were necessary to meet a challenge. She chose to accept injury because injury reminded her of her own humanity.

Ammon knew these things about his cousin. They had shared many conversations on the value of human life and the threat that their powers brought to humanity and to their own souls.

"Sukru," he said gently. "We must guard against thinking too highly of ourselves. That's why I find your mother so charming. She makes sure I'm humbled whenever I get out of line." There had been a combined chuckle and sigh of relief as tension eased and Lena continued her narrative.

When the meeting was finished the team was dismissed, leaving only Ammon and Lena. As the tea was cleared away Ammon called for a bottle of raki. He knew the story wasn't over.

"I know it's early, but I thought we could use something a little stronger than tea," he said as his assistant brought the potent anise-flavored alcohol in on a tray, along with glasses, water, and ice. Ammon dismissed the man and fixed their drinks himself, watching the clear raki turn milky white as he added water. He handed Lena a glass, resumed his seat in the comfortable leather chair that matched her own, and waited.

She took a sip. "It was Yorke."

"Shit." Ammon immediately understood what was weighing down his normally vivacious cousin. "Were you told beforehand?"

"Not until I got on site."

"Figures." Ammon was clearly disgusted. "Angels. They always have a secret plan and they don't play fair. I think they must have created 'need-to-know.' But you took the job anyway, and you didn't kill him. I'm impressed."

"I took the job under protest and I didn't kill him because I'm forbidden to. Why can't he just die! You'd think the son-of-a-bitch has a guardian angel or something!

Ammon took a sip of his drink. "So," he asked, "how is your old boyfriend?"

"Fuck you." Lena was not in the mood.

"Come on, cousin. Who else are you going to talk to about it? You haven't seen him for, what, over 200 years? How's he looking? Pretty as ever?" Ammon chuckled softly into his drink.

Lena took a breath. "It's been nearly 300 years, thank you, since I held a knife to his throat and a stake to his heart. He hasn't changed, god damn his beautiful hide straight to hell! Just about perfect, except for that little scar on his cheek where a whip cut him while he was still human."

"That's how it all started, wasn't it? How you two met, back in 1513? The stable master, what was his name? Nasty man, I met him once—"

"Pyotr." Lena spat out the name like a curse. "I suspected him of beating the horses. Caught him in the act that day."

"Right, you told me. Young Henry blocked the blow and got cut on the cheek by Pyotr's whip. Pretty nervy thing for a groom to do, but I guess it earned him a promotion."

"He'd just been hired, too," Lena continued the story. "Pyotr, the cocksucker, was making him work to earn his first meal. Lord I hated that man! I don't see what Andrzej saw in him."

"I think your description of the man pretty well sums up what your fair nephew saw in him," Ammon said with a smirk.

"Yeah, that's about it," Lena said. "Andrzej is an asshole. Always has been, probably always will be. I never should have given him charge over my Polish properties. He kept Pyotr on as his personal groomsman after I told him to throw the man off the property."

Ammon threw her a look. "You mean Andrzej is still in place? After all this time? Surely you could have found someone more pleasant to deal with by now."

"I promised his dad I'd give him the job. I think he knew Andrzej is a sorry sack of shit who would never make it on his own," Lena explained. "I have moved him to a position of financial management only. He handles money better than he handles people."

"Ah. That explains how he is still alive. Otherwise someone would have killed him for sure."

"He's been very careful since he discovered that regeneration isn't among his gifts," Lena smiled to herself as she recalled the day she helped Andrzej make that discovery. He had used his position as steward to steal from her and she had chosen an old-school punishment. It is harder to steal when you're missing a hand.

Ammon returned the conversation to current events. "Still, it was right for them to call you in on this job. It was a bad one. Caedis Cruciatus was probably the most powerful demon in existence. Nobody else could have handled it. I couldn't have. Uri wasn't able to. You had to do it."

"Yes."

"But it's over now, so you can go back into hiding," Ammon said, carefully keeping his voice neutral. "I wish you wouldn't do that. You've never run from a fight in your life."

"But I'm not allowed to fight, that's the problem." Lena put her head in her hands for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "There's such a fine line between justice and vengeance. We were forbidden to harm Humbaba*, remember? The monster killed your wife and children and neither one of us was allowed to touch him for it."

"We didn't run and hide, though, we found another way. Gilgamesh* took care of that one," Ammon said. "He was a good friend; too bad he's not around to deal with Yorke. There aren't enough of us left to handle those kinds of favors anymore, not since Snow's genocide initiative of 1700." He paused, then continued. "Maybe I could look into the Yorke thing for you? Find a professional?"

"Don't do it, Ammon, it would get us both in trouble. Just to make sure Yorke doesn't accidentally fall into a stake, I'm forbidden to cause him harm, either directly or through the acts of others. I'm fucked."

"Lena, I'm so sorry. As edicts from on high go, this one is pretty horrible." Ammon shook his head, dismayed.

"So, Yorke lives." She practically flung herself out of her chair and began pacing. "**I** can't kill him. Nobody else in the world has been able to kill him—he even tried to blow himself up and managed to live through it! He's a fucking vampire, an obscenity smeared across the face of the world, and I'm supposed to just sit by and watch him tear people to pieces? I can't stand it! I don't want to know about it! For fuck's sake! C'mon!" Her last words were directed toward the ceiling, and beyond it, in an appeal to the god who was binding her hands.

"So you're hiding from a groom," Ammon shook his head.

Lena rounded on her cousin. "Henry wasn't just a groom, Ammon, he was my stable master. He ate at my table and he warmed my bed and when he stole my best horse and ran off to become a mercenary, he took my heart with him, the miserable son-of-a-bitch!"

Lena's coarse roar of frustration was accompanied by a shudder in the walls. Books shifted and lamps swung gently but nothing fell or broke. Ammon knew how to design and build to suit the particular challenges of Seraphin Nepos.

Lena hands shook as she poured herself another drink and sat back down. She calmed herself before speaking again. "So yeah, I've spent 300 years hiding from my ex-boyfriend. And now I have to get my bola back from him."

"What?" Ammon was lost for a moment, then remembered that detail of her story. "You left it? I didn't realize."

"I couldn't just leave him running loose in Wales. As far as I know he's still trussed up like a Christmas goose." She smiled at the thought. "Oh well, that's no reason to rush back just for that. Mind if I stick around for a few days?"

Ammon raised his glass. "You are always welcome. How about a toast, cousin? To the things that defeat us, scarce as they are. To stable hands and stolen horses. To monsters left unharmed."

Lena finished the toast. "And to a creator with a sick sense of humor."

*_salwar_—pants with an elastic or drawstring waste and gathered voluminous legs

*_ekmek_—Turkish bread, a staple of the diet

*_samovar_—tea kettle typical of the region. It has a large chamber on the bottom in which to heat and hold water, and a small teapot on top in which to brew very strong tea.

*_Lucifer_—name means 'shining one or morning star.' Lucifer is the archangel who, in Christian mythology, brought a third of the host of heaven into battle against God in an attempt to take over the throne of heaven. He was defeated and cast into the pit of hell. He assumed a new role, as Satan or the devil. The concept of the fallen angel or god appears in several religious and cultural mythologies. Lucifer was said to be the most beautiful of all the angels.

*_Humbaba_—a monstrous giant in Mesopotamian mythology. He guarded the forest of the gods and was a terror to humans.

*_Gilgamesh_—in Mesopotamian mythology, Gilgamesh is a demigod of superhuman strength. He is usually described as two-thirds god and one third man.


	6. Chapter 6 Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Meanwhile, back at Honolulu Heights, Hal was in full-blown raging, starving vampire mode, but thanks to Lena's bola he was unable to free himself from his restraints. Because he had drunk more blood he was clearly much stronger than he had been during his last detox, so Tom and Alex tried to guard him more closely. One of them kept him in eyesight at all times, no matter how painful it was for them to watch the creature that used to be their friend.

Tom dreaded Hal's convulsions and the screams of pain and rage brought on by withdrawal because they reminded him too much of his own monthly transformations. When Hal was lucid they could have a semblance of a conversation, and even though Tom knew he was no longer talking to his friend, he continued to speak to Hal as if he were.

Alex, on the other hand, wasn't bothered by Hal's rages. She suspected they were the only time when he was completely honest. What she hated most were his attempts at seduction. His eyes would nearly glow with lust as he stared at her, smiling, hungry.

"Alex," the vampire nearly purred at her, "why are you angry with me? I thought you fancied me."

"That was before you went on a rampage and tried to create a vampire army," she replied from the bar where she sat reading a magazine.

"Could you please come here and adjust these straps? They are binding a—"he arched his eyebrows "—sensitive area."

"No. Way." She ignored the impressive bulge in his trousers.

"Are you quite sure? I can't do anything to hurt you, bound as I am. Just a few simple—adjustments would be appreciated."

She shook her head emphatically, staring resolutely at her magazine.

"Then perhaps you could assist me another way in relieving the pressure of my current situation." His voice lowered in register, a subtle bass growl added to his tone. "I promise you it would be quite pleasurable."

She looked him in the eyes, making sure not to allow her gaze to wander along the way. "Not if you were the last dick on earth."

He laughed at her, stretching in the chair to make sure his muscles flexed and rippled. "Another time, perhaps," he murmured, scorching her with a look before changing tactics and returning to threats of violence against every living member of her family if she didn't release him **immediately!**

They worried for the first few days that they might not be able to contain the vampire, until they realized that they truly did have a third partner in their attempt to keep Hal restrained.

The turning point came about 2 o'clock in the morning of the third day, when Tom was awakened by a crash and some extravagant cursing. He leapt up from the sofa where he dozed while ostensibly keeping guard; Hal writhed against the bola's restraint in the middle of a pile of broken chair parts. The bola had simply readjusted itself to control him in his new position. By the looks of things, Hal had been quietly working to loosen the glue joints in the chair since he had been strapped in, until the whole thing had simply collapsed onto the floor. _That explains why he's been so fidgety,_ Tom thought after he had turned on the light so he could see what was going on.

Alex appeared immediately, of course. "Shite. Now what?" she said as she watched the black-eyed, cursing fiend on the floor.

"We clonk him on the head and put him in the basement," Tom replied. "We'll use the Crumb chair, it'll hold him for the night." Tom had yet to need the secure room in the basement for one of his 'monthlies' so the gear from Hal's failed attempt to detox Crumb, a newborn vampire, was still there.

"Great! My turn to do the clonking!" Alex cried, and before Tom could protest she was swinging a cricket bat at the vampire's head. Hal didn't see it coming. Alex poked the limp and bleeding vampire a few times with a boot to make sure he wasn't faking it, then rent-a-ghosted him to the basement. Tom followed wearily after fishing some straps from the wreckage of the chair. _Sometimes I wish she could rent-a-ghost me, _he thought.

Once again they worked as a team to get their unconscious housemate settled securely into a chair. Once again the bola only responded to Alex, but Tom didn't question it. He was just glad to have it there. Hal could have escaped, or killed him, or both, without it.

"I'm hopin' the demon hunter lady don't come back for that thing real soon," he confessed to Alex.

"Me too. Maybe when she does we can ask her to let us borrow it for a while." Alex stood up, finished with the task at hand. "I'll stay with him, Tom. You go on to bed."

"I'm goin'," Tom replied, "and I reckon you can too. He's fine. He's not goin' nowhere." Tom trudged to his room and collapsed on the bed; he felt like he could truly sleep for the first time in days.

Alex leaned up against the basement wall and watched the unconscious vampire for a few minutes, until the gash in the back of his head stopped bleeding and began to heal with super-vampire speed. She grinned at the thought of telling Hal the reason for his nasty headache when he finally came to. Alex carefully locked the door to the basement room, went up the stairs, and carefully locked the door to the basement itself before heading into the living room to clean up the broken chair.

Tom slept until 10am, when the sound of Hal's mobile phone playing Debussy's "Arabesque" on the nightstand next to his bed woke him up. It was Hal's ring tone for hotel business. He said he needed something calming to help him face whatever crisis was waiting for him at the other end of the line. Hal could be a bit over-dramatic at times.

"Hal Yorke's phone, Tom McNair speaking." Tom and Alex had decided that he should answer calls in this manner and he had practiced it a couple of times to make sure it sounded good. The call was from Ms. Alice Monroe, representing the hotel management company that owned the Barry Grand. The hotel had been closed since Hatch's departure, as it was considered a crime scene. The bodies of staff and guests had been returned to their families and the government investigation completed. The management company needed to speak to acting manager Mr. Yorke about the hotel's future.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Monroe, but Mr. Yorke was injured during the –kerfluffle—last week and is recuperating. We can't say when he'll be able to return to work." Tom carefully told the cover story that Alex had helped him prepare. "I'm assistant manager. Can I help you?"

And just like that, because desperate times call for desperate measures, Tom McNair became acting manager of a hotel with limited staff, no guests, a horrible reputation, and absentee owners who had listed it for sale. It turned out to be an excellent fit.

Tom maintained his composure until he had carefully taken Ms. Monroe's instructions, ended the call and set the phone back on the nightstand. Then he ran into the hallway. "Alex! Alex! Woo, Alex!" Tom, unable to contain his excitement, was jumping back and forth in the hallway while calling for her. As the ghost appeared he grabbed her by both arms and swung her around in the hallway once while shouting the good news. "I'm actin' manager! Of the hotel! They called an' I said everything just like we practiced and now I'm manager!"

He let go of her and ran back to his room, calling as he went, "I have to shower and get to work, I have a list in me head of things to do!" Alex smiled at the sound of stuff being thrown around in Tom's room and popped over to his door just as he came tearing out with a pair of clean pants in his hand. He fairly leaped down the hallway and into the bathroom to have a wash.

Alex couldn't help laughing a bit as he whizzed past. "Congratulations! Ah, Tom, that's great! It's perfect!" As the word left her lips Alex caught her breath. "Perfect. Shite, not again!"

She flashed to the basement room and turned on the light. Hal was still there, still tied up and apparently still unconscious. _Thank god,_ she thought,_ it's not another dream._

The vampire stirred, glared at her and began to curse. "Tell your fucking hound to stop his infernal howling, bitch, or I'll…"

"SHUT IT!" Alex suddenly had the cricket bat in her hands again. She had moved so quickly that she didn't even realize it had happened. "Shut your fucking mouth or I will knock your fangs out!" She held her weapon at the ready.

Hal carefully closed his mouth and studied her, his face expressionless. She had never been this resolute. Something had changed in Alex; there was no softness, no sentiment in the woman standing in front of him. She meant every word that she said.

Hal took a slow, careful, calming breath. "May I ask what Tom is so excited about?" Hal spoke quietly; his sense of self-preservation told him that defusing the situation was of utmost importance for his survival.

Alex took a step back but kept a firm hold on the cricket bat. "The hotel called. Tom's been promoted to acting manager in your absence. He's getting ready to go to work." She narrowed her eyes at the vampire. "I won't let you spoil this for him. You will keep quiet until he leaves. Understood?"

"Understood. Is that-"he nodded at the bat "-the reason for my headache?"

"Brilliant deduction Sherlock. Have you also deduced that you didn't escape?" Alex wasn't in the mood to be polite.

"I am able to remember that much of the events of earlier," he replied, allowing a touch of sarcasm into his voice. "I believe I also remember that this –weapon- of the Seraphin's is the reason why. Perfect."

Alex smiled at his use of the word. _It is perfect, in a real-world-with-real-monsters kind of way, _she thought. _And that's my kind of perfect._

Because he didn't want to use the 'borrowed' Ford Focus, Tom walked to the hotel. Actually, Tom ran partway until he realized that it was undignified for a hotel manager to be seen running through the streets, after which he slowed to a walk with occasional skips of joy. He had just unlocked the front door and entered the lobby to survey the mess when Mr. Rook stepped through the door behind him.

"Tom?"

"Hello, Mr. Rook, what can I do for you?" Tom asked, using his professional voice.

"I thought you may need this," Rook replied as he handed Tom a folder. "We've compiled a list of all deceased employees and patrons. Their families have been notified, of course, no need to concern yourself with that. It occurred to me that you could use the list to reorganize the employee files at the hotel."

"Ah, thanks Mr. Rook, I was gonna call you and ask about that. I'm actin' manager now, so I have to contact the remaining staff." Tom's enunciation of the last phrase of his sentence told Rook that he was quoting instructions verbatim.

"Quite right. Good first step after a tragedy, contact the living. Must keep moving forward, mustn't we?" Rook pushed what he hoped was an appropriate smile onto his face. "You are in charge now? Congratulations, Tom, I'm sure you will do well." He held out his hand, which Tom took quickly for a professionally firm handshake.

"We have retrieved a car that we believe to belong to your household," Rook continued. "One of my people is bringing it now, and will be in to give you the keys shortly. Is there anything else we can do for you at present?"

"About Natasha—"Tom hesitated to ask.

"Of course. My family traditionally are members of Merthyr Dyfan parish. You will find her in the cemetery there. We've had a delay on her gravestone, due to present circumstances, but I have placed a temporary marker." Rook spoke while writing on a small notepad. "Here are the coordinates." He tore out the page and handed it to Tom.

"Tom, I—well, I appreciate the fact that you still care about Natasha after what you have learned," Rook said.

"Well, I can't really blame her, can I? She was just doin' what you asked of her, weren't she? I reckon she didn't see that she had much choice in it, her respectin' you and wantin' to be like you and aught. She was a grand girl, and she deserved better." Tom spoke with a simple honesty that Rook found hard to match.

"Yes, she deserved much better," he said, "and so did you." Rook turned to go, head slightly bowed.

Tom watched him leave before heading to the manager's office. He tried not to let the dried blood and destruction get to him as he went. _First things first,_ he thought. _Find out who is willing to come back to work here, assemble the team, and then start the cleanup._

# # #

Thanks to FedEx it took Lena's Aunt Ruby, actually a niece many times removed, just a few days to ship her passport, bank cards, laptop, and cell phone from her home in the States to Istanbul. The company was currently offering efficient shipping worldwide, except to and within the United Kingdom. Apparently there was a temporary disruption of services in that area, which the company hoped would be rectified soon.

As she opened the package, Lena couldn't help smiling at the speed with which things happen in the modern world. "Soon my wings will be outdated," she mused as she checked her email, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Her timelines were full of news about mass suicides and unexplained multiple murders throughout the UK, with theories and rumors running rampant. She sighed. Tumblr and YouTube would have to wait. The last thing she needed was a bunch of gifs and vids of the "British Apocalypse.'"

Lena didn't need the bank cards as she had substantial financial resources in Istanbul. She still declined when Leylak asked if she wanted to go to the Grand Bazaar. Completed in 1461 AD, the Bazaar was massive, with thousands of vendors in areas designated for their particular type of goods. Lena closed her eyes and recalled the vibrant colors of fabric, jewelry, and clothes, the smells of spices and livestock, the sounds of the vendors, arms outstretched, enticing customers to their stalls.

Sensory overload was easy for any person who visited the Bazaar; how much easier was it for one who saw ghosts in the shadows, curses draped across the shoulders of shoppers, evil glinting in the eyes of merchants and tradesmen? _No thank you, a trip to a neighborhood street bazaar is plenty of excitement for this tired old hunter, _Lena said to herself. As if reading her thoughts Rya, who was also able to sense the wealth of unsavory elements in large crowds, suggested that she and Pinar take Lena out on the family's sailing yacht.

Pinar proved to be an excellent sailor and a decisive captain, and soon she had Rya and Lena working efficiently as her crew. A quiet afternoon on the Sea of Marmara and a few rounds of raki led to comfortable conversation. Rya was a student of history and asked Lena about the great women she had met through the centuries.

Lena shared a few stories of her favorites, from Amazon warriors to well-educated courtesans to one of the world's greatest pirates. Lena had met Ching Shih, the Cantonese prostitute who went on to become one of the most powerful pirates in history. "I was impressed by her intelligence, business and political acumen, and courage. And she protected female captives from being raped. I liked that woman's style."

"Were you a pirate?" Pinar's eyes shone. "I'll bet you were! Dad says you like to go on a tear sometimes."

When Lena didn't respond, Rya did. "He may be talking about the slave traders. Our cousin has historically hated the slave trade and has acted out against it most vehemently."

Lena's eyes narrowed as she looked at Rya. "I don't discuss my battles. But you may be right. I met Ching Shih while hunting slavers. Slavery is the worst thing humans can do to each other; it is a creation of evil that breeds more evil and destroys the souls of all those involved."

"And…" Pinar queried.

Again Lena remained silent, and again Rya spoke. "According to Seraphin Nepos history our cousin has released slaves, destroyed property, and punished slaveholders, generally by branding, whipping, or hanging."

"That sounds terrible!" Pinar wasn't privy to Seraphin history so the idea of a Seraphin Nepos choosing how to punish people made her uncomfortable.

"Turnabout is fair play, after all." Lena gave a quick half-smile that turned to a tight frown. "Unless they're in the sex trade. Sex slavers must die."

"What..do you.." Pinar's question was interrupted by Lena's grim look and shake of the head.

"She cut off their genitals and let them bleed to death, then gathered up the bits and bobs and pinned them up somewhere as a warning to others." Rya finished the story triumphantly, apparently quoting from a transcript.

"My god!" Pinar look horrified. "How could you do that?"

Lena shrugged, "I was born in a time when crime and punishment were much more straightforward." She looked at the young human and her sister, a gentle Seraphin Nepos who would never be called to war.

"I walk through a world where the souls of men lay naked before me. I see them, I judge them, at times I kill them. This is what I am. This is what I chose to be, when mankind was young and monsters were newly born in the world."

Lena took a sip of raki and looked out over the water for a minute before exclaiming, "But enough of this. Let's have happy talk! Tell me about your families, your husbands. You both seem very happy."

Rya began the inevitable conversation, "My husband Raghib pleases me greatly, of course."

"Of course," Pinar giggled. "His name means 'desirous and willing' after all. What more do you want? I've only known one man, so I can't make comparisons, but I believe that my husband is well-equipped for the job of keeping me happy." She giggled again. "Speaking of well-equipped…" She looked at Lena, as did Rya.

"Bullshit, the both of you. I can see the setup a mile away. You're not going to get me talking. Besides, the size of the equipment is less important than the skill of the operator." She smiled to herself. "Trust me."

"Come on cousin, please? You've had so many adventures, you've met so many men, and dad says that you once even charmed an incubus into cutting his own throat." Pinar shuddered slightly. That wasn't actually the kind of story she was hoping for.

"Sorry girls, your dad asked me to watch my language around the children," Lena smirked.

"We aren't children," Rya murmured with a sly smile. "Come on cousin, tell us about a man you've charmed. What exactly do you consider well-equipped?"

Pushing aside the memory of a young Englishman with excellent attributes and noteworthy skills, Lena instead told them about the founder of Istanbul.

"You want a story? Here's a good one. I had a fling with the Greek prince Byzas, founder of your fair city. He was an amazing lover, great looking too, built like a brick house. Even better, he was amorous, attentive, and had great stamina, and oh, holy hell was he well-hung! Thank god for my super-transformation powers."

The sisters exchanged looks. "Excuse me?" Pinar had to ask.

"I can take any human form, camouflage myself, part of my gift. I'd heard stories about Byzas and chose a form with suitable features." Lena flipped her hair back seductively and cupped her hands in front of her breasts to signify a substantial increase in size.

"Not fair!" Rya exclaimed. "You have all the fun gifts!"

"Yeah, but I also get all the shit jobs, so it evens out," Lena reminded her. She continued her story.

"We met at a banquet in the King's palace. I came in with a troupe of dancers," Lena rose to her feet as she recalled the cordax, a dance famed for its licentiousness, and began undulating in rhythm with the gentle slapping of waves against the side of the yacht.

She spoke as she moved. "I danced in front of Byzas and before I was through he leapt over the banquet table and carried me off. Which was my plan." Lena chuckled. "We didn't make it to his chambers, he just pinned me against the wall in a corner. There was something about that man." Lena shivered and sat down as if the memory made her knees weak.

"He had the equipment and the skill, and enough staying power to keep me very happy. We spent hours, sometimes days, in his chambers, not even bothering to put clothes on. We had sex in every position we had ever heard of and a few we made up. It was perfect. So of course it couldn't last." She sighed and took another sip of raki.

"Byzas was ambitious. He wanted to establish a new settlement on the Bosporus and I came with him, wasn't about to let his glorious cock out of my sight. The relationship fell to pieces once he got busy building Byzantium. So I left. End of story."

But it wasn't the end of the story. Lena had truly cared for Byzas and had planned to spend the remainder of his life with him and help him establish the settlement that bore his name. She hadn't just left; she had been called away on Seraphin Nepos business. When she returned to Byzantium several months later, Byzas was married to a Greek princess. Lena hadn't bothered to re-introduce herself; she chose instead to stay with Ammon and his family until after her child was born.

Lena's relationship with the city Byzas had founded continued through the centuries. As Byzantium became Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire and wealthiest city in the world, Lena returned to stand with Ammon and battle the cursed beings and demon-driven creatures that gathered there. She eventually stopped being surprised at how many of them were church-supported. She saw the Crusades rise against the 'enemies of Christ' and fall into corruption, and she witnessed the fall and pillage of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade, not by 'infidels' but by those who claimed to be Christian. She watched with Ammon when the Ottoman Empire took the city in 1453 and renamed it Istanbul.

When Lena looked across the water she saw centuries of blood and war on the landscape of the ancient capital. Her own battles hadn't been against armies but against the monsters who fed off the desolation of war: the unseen enemy that was often at the heart of war, calling up evil in the souls of men and feasting on the carnage they created. That was Lena's story, more than any love won, lost, or abandoned. Her story was written in blood and ash and black, bitter dust.


	7. Chapter 7 Facing the Beast

After a week in the care of Leylak, Ammon, and their family Lena felt healthy again. Her regenerative powers were restored and she was anxious to get home to her quiet house and garden. _Shit, I really am a Hobbit! I'll be calling for second breakfast and shaving my feet before long! _

She bought the few things she would need to travel like a normal human and booked a flight to London on Turkish Airlines. She planned a quick trip to Wales to get her bola, another flight into New York, then St. Louis and the drive home. Lena had considered leaving the bola, but it occurred to her that she didn't leave instructions on how to remove it from Yorke. She spent a few minutes picturing the vampire, wrapped in her bola years from now, in a basement, forgotten by the world, begging the rats to come closer so he can have a bite…_Stop it! That's exactly the kind of thing Grandpa is worried about!_ _Revenge is bad! Bad!_

Ammon drove Lena to the airport, saddened as always to see her go but pleased to see her choosing once again to be among people. After all, she didn't have to take a plane, but Lena had long ago gotten into the habit of travelling human-style unless exceptional measures where required. She had been brought up carefully by a family conscious of her power and of the potential for corruption that lay within it. Consequently she routinely chose human over supernatural behaviors.

Lena in turn had helped Ammon to understand his own nature and the need for human contact to counteract it, a lesson he valued above all others. Too many of the Nephilim bloodline had been lured into monstrous acts by the arrogance and condescension that followed abuse of their powers.

As Lena boarded, she noticed that the jet was half-empty, even though the standard five daily flights had been reduced to once daily. It seemed that nobody wanted to set foot in England these days; she was the only passenger who didn't look nervous and even the pilot was jumpy. She turned her iPad to airplane mode, put in her earbuds, and focused on Adele live at the Royal Albert Hall. How can so much amazing music come out of one woman?

Once in London, Lena stopped at the offices of the London branch of the financial conglomeration of which she was the sole owner for a quick update on the state of her affairs, followed by a conference call with her directors across Europe and Asia. After official business was done she had a private meeting with her London CEO, a Seraphin Nepos who could fill in more of the details of the true state of affairs in the UK. She also wanted to buy a car for the drive to Barry and needed to make sure she had a current driving license (no restrictions). The car itself would be owned by and registered to the business and garaged along with other vehicles in the executive fleet.

Lena spent the night in her private suite at Hotel 41, of which she was the owner through one of her holdings. Her rooms were available to her at all times although their existence was unknown to any but the most experienced staff in the establishment. The double doors opening into her home in London were unmarked and in a corner on the fourth floor, one floor below the rooms used by visitors to the hotel. She had a parking space reserved in the employee parking area on the ground floor of the building and took a private elevator from the hallway outside the business office to her suite. The elevator and suite were locked at all times; she had one set of keys and the hotel manager, also a Seraphin Nepos, had the other.

From London Lena drove to Barry in her new car, which she was able to purchase for a surprisingly low price from a dealer who was thankful to see her. Apparently a good percentage of the weak-minded suicides in England had been well-to-do and his business was experiencing a slump. Lena cuddled up in her gorgeous blue Audi R8 and stroked the steering wheel sensuously. This beast was like hot sex on wheels: luxurious, responsive, wickedly delicious through the curves and fierce as hell on the straight-aways. Lena loved few things more than a great car, and this car was her new obsession. It would return to the States with her if she had to fly it there personally, sans airplane.

Roughly three hours after leaving London Lena parked in front of the expansive brick house clearly labeled "Honolulu Heights." As she neared the front door she could hear the vampire raging within, cursing and threatening in a genuinely glorious stream of filth in three different Germanic languages, at least two Slavic, and a smattering of French that was pure eloquence. Lena paused for appreciation. She was no beginner at foul language, but Yorke was teaching a master class. "Fuck me, but he's good! I should be taking notes," she muttered.

Apparently his housemates didn't appreciate the learning experience with which they were being presented. Lena heard the ghost scream, "Shut Up SHUT UP **SHUT UP!** Tom, please, I'm beggin' ya. Let's clonk him on the head and put him back in the basement!" The werewolf muttered a negative reply, apparently not wanting to injure his friend.

"Hello the house!" Lena called out, pushing her voice through brick and glass and interrupting the chaos within. Yorke's rage halted in mid-stream.

Tom ran to the window, peeked through the blinds, and smiled when he saw her. He jumped to the door and flung it open, stepped aside, and offered her passage. "Lena, hello. Do come in, won't you?" His speech was clearly rehearsed, but the smile was genuine.

Lena walked into the B&B and for just a moment thought she had been thrown back in time, to about the same decade as her grandfather's horrible shirts. Alex sat at a tiki bar, in the living room. _A TIKI BAR. In the LIVING ROOM. Holy shit, Grandpa would love this!_ The ghost was staring at the vampire, who was strapped to a chair in the middle of the floor. Yorke's eyes blackened, his face contorted, and his fangs gleamed as he hissed at Lena. The vampire curse, blood red and gleaming, draped like a soaked veil across his pale skin and blood-stained clothes.

"Did you do that?" Alex asked, looking at Lena and pointing toward Yorke.

Lena shrugged lightly with a brief half-smile. "That's the typical vampire reaction to my sort. Murderous rage kind of chokes them up for a bit. I'm surprised he spoke to me at the tv station, to tell you the truth; usually they just attack or run."

"I guess you came for your rope thingy." Alex said.

"My bola, yes. I see he's still wearing it," Lena said with a slight chuckle in her voice. She could only imagine the vampire's fury at being trussed like a roast for two weeks.

Yeah," Tom stood next to her and studied Hal. "We couldn't get it off."

"Oh, my bad. I forgot about that." Lena walked up to the vampire and smiled sweetly at him while speaking to Tom. "Are you sure you want me to take it off of him?" The vampire's black eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as he strained against his bindings, murder clearly on his mind. The curse, bound by her bola, writhed in fury at her approach.

"Ermm, might let him cool down a bit first, yeah?" Alex suggested. "Would you like some tea? Maybe in the kitchen, away from Mr. Creepy?"

"Mr. Creepy! Hah! I'd be pleased to stay for tea."

"If you don't mind, maybe you can tell us a bit about yourself, like what you are and aught," Tom said as they went into the kitchen.

"Of course," Lena replied. "I guess Mr. Creepy hasn't said anything useful? He knows what I am."

"Yeah, **Hal** called you a Seraphin something," Tom said, looking slightly cross, "when he was talking to Mr. Rook and the Men in Grey. He ain't said no more, but he ain't himself just yet."

"Maybe this is himself and the Hal we knew is gone for good, Tom," Alex said.

"I won't believe that. He's in there, somewhere. We've just got to be patient."

"Shite, Tom, we've been patient as saints! It was what, weeks last time and he'd only had a little blood. Who knows how long it will take this time. Maybe he's too far gone." Alex slumped at the table morosely, head in her hands. She stared at the swinging doors into the dining area, seeing in her mind the monster at the other end of the house.

"This time? He was dry for a while?" Lena couldn't help asking, even though part of her didn't want to know.

"Yeah, he said it had been 55 years. He was in a good cycle. Then he drank my blood right before we blew up the Old Ones. Tom and me got him sobered up again, or so we thought. We found out he was still drinking blood, he just hadn't killed anyone for it. That we know of," Alex finished darkly.

Tom picked up the story. "Hal and me got jobs at the Barry Grand, where Hatch was livin'. He turned us against each other to get his power back, then Hal went bad and killed a bunch of people just before Hatch tried to take over."

Lena sank into a chair next to Alex. She felt light-headed again, sick to her stomach at the thought of Yorke running loose in the world, killing and feeding._ He's supposed to be dead by now, not being given __another __second chance by these naïve fools. If only she could kill him…torture him, make him suffer like he made so many others… _

Tom's voice penetrated the haze of anger and anguish. "…not sure what you want, so here's both." Tom set down milk and a sugar bowl, followed by two cups of tea. Lena smiled weakly. "Thanks." Putting a splash of milk and a sprinkling of sugar into her tea, she continued. "As for what I am…"

* * *

Thirty minutes, two cups of tea, and a brief history lesson later Tom and Alex were much more comfortable with what they had seen at the television station. Lena had summarized the origins of the Nephilim as beings that are half-immortal and half-human; she had explained about their descendants the Seraphin Nepos, beings who carried the genetic fingerprint of their immortal ancestors; and she gave them the rundown on the basic range and strength of the gifts that Seraphin Nepos could possess. She had introduced herself as a descendant of Raphael, an archangel whose gifts were in healing and fighting. She admitted to being more powerful than most current Seraphin Nepos, which she put down to a fluke of genetics.

She also admitted that she knew of Yorke before being introduced to him in the studio. In fact, she said, most Seraphin Nepos knew him by reputation if not by sight. Neither Tom nor Alex pressed for further explanation, and Lena didn't offer one.

"So, you're part angel and part human." Alex stated. "Does that mean all that Bible stuff is real?"

"The truth is, my people predate the written Bible or any organized religion for that matter. I use the language of the Bible because it is the human text that was written in the area I am from and the one people in this part of the world are most familiar with. Creatures like us exist all over the world, and we generally explain ourselves in the context of the creation myths that our local cultures have devised."

She continued, "I'm not a god and I don't know everything. I just live and work on this planet in this universe, and I do the best I can. I suspect there is a lot more to reality than just this universe, but that's just me. I'm a Whovian always looking for a blue box."

"Fuckin' aye!" Alex interrupted, adding a quick "Doctor Who, please tell me you know that!" to Tom. He nodded.

Lena continued, "What I know for sure is that the world exists, good and evil exist, and they strive against each other for dominance in the world. I know that physical and spiritual things can be combined in this world, but the physical has a hard time surviving in eternity. It just wears out, you know?"

"So what about other gods and devils and stuff?" Alex asked. "You know, like we learned in school. Zeus and Mars and Venus. Gilgamesh and Buddha."

"And Thor and Loki, like in The Avengers," Tom added.

"Yeah, and Hercules and Xena, Warrior Princess!"

"Slow down, would you?" Lena chuckled. "I'll explain what I can! Mythology all over the world tries to explain the human relationship with creation and eternity, and there's a lot of truth in it. Hercules was half-god half-man, you know. So was Gilgamesh. History books don't say so, but they were Nephilim."

"What about Xena?" Alex asked. "I love Xena. I want to be Xena!"

"Sorry, I got nothing. I've no clue where she came from," Lena said. "But she's awesome!" The two women high-fived in solidarity with warrior princesses everywhere.

"So there's eternity. And a place where good and bad people go when they die," Tom said. "I've seen the doors…"

"Tom, I only know as far as I can see, but I've seen beings, good and bad, that move without time and never age. I've stood before a being who claims to be the creator who put all of this together, and I believe it's the truth. I don't know what might be out there that is even bigger than all this, but I can tell you that what I have seen is far bigger than any myth or religion on the planet." Lena rubbed a hand across her forehead. "People are clueless and they prefer to stay that way. The real world is far too scary for them. They use religion and myth and faith as security blankets against the dark."

"So, what am I? Where do I belong?" Alex asked.

"You are what is left of a person after the physical parts are gone. You are essentially a soul. You belong in eternity. You just haven't gotten there yet." Lena smiled gently at her. "But you will, in time."

"What about Hal?" Tom asked. "He says that he doesn't have a soul."

"He isn't currently in possession of his soul. He has traded it for existence as a vampire. But it exists. Souls are eternal," Lena said.

"I can hear you," a voice called from the other room. "If you're going to talk about me, at least have the courtesy to include me in the conversation."

Alex rolled her eyes. "He's ba-ack."

"I never left, Alex; I've been quietly enjoying your history lesson," Yorke replied.

Tom moved through the swinging kitchen doors. "Comin' mate."

When Yorke spoke Lena stilled herself, not allowing his voice, like butter on gravel, to visibly affect her. She couldn't help the tingles running up and down her spine, however. Some things are timeless, and stronger than hate. _Shit. This is going to be harder than I thought. _

She moved with Alex into the living room, feeling the vampire's eyes on her as she approached. He smiled wickedly. "Hello again, Miss Seraphin Nepos. Did you enjoy your tea? Have a lovely chat? I think you left something out of your story." He shifted slightly in the chair, and gave Lena a look that broke her heart and lit a fire in her nethers. "You forgot to mention our shared history. You and me, vampire and vampire slayer, the yin and yang of immortality." His voiced lowered a notch. "Have you come to kill me, at last?"

"Would you like me to?" Lena breathed carefully and kept her camouflage in place._ He doesn't know me, _she reminded herself.

"Not just yet thanks, can I have a rain check?"

"Hal, what's goin' on?" Tom was worried. "She's come to kill ya?" He stepped into position between the two, alert and ready to defend his friend.

"If I had come to kill him, he'd be dead," Lena stated flatly. Her bola tightened briefly around the vampire, making him gasp for breath as he spoke:

"Tom, your new friend forgot to mention that her kind have a long history of hunting down and killing my kind. I'm sure she's familiar with the sport, whether or not she has participated in it."

Lena leaned against the back of the sofa as she faced the vampire. Matching his tone, she replied. "Well, Lord Harry, if I had met you earlier I might have been enticed to join the hunt. Sadly, the sport has fallen out of fashion among my kind, and I gave my word not to harm you when I was called to deal with Caedis Cruciatus. You're safe. For now."

"Really? Why would you make a promise like that, Miss Vampire Slayer?"

"Because I'd enjoy killing you just a little too much for my own good, and I'm expected to avoid such wicked delights. The devil doesn't own my soul and I'd like to keep it that way."

"You called me Lord Harry, so I take it you know my full name. Would you care to divulge yours?"

"Michaela Raquel Perennis," she replied. "Lena for everyday use."

"Hmm, I don't recognize it. Not famous, then, in certain circles?" Yorke was beginning to sound a bit like a snob, but she recognized his real aim. He was fishing for information.

"My name is a choice. Were you hoping to find my surname among the ones you hunted down during the Seraphin genocide?"

"What? What's she talkin' about, Hal? What did you do?" Alex knew what genocide meant. The question was simply a reflex by this point.

"Somewhere around 1700, AD of course, vampires began a campaign aimed at the worldwide extermination of my people," Lena explained, pleased to see Yorke's displeasure at her knowledge of their shared history. "I believe it was Mr. Snow's idea. He gave his protégé here the job of cleaning up Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. It's how he earned his title and his throne."

"It was hardly genocide, more a balancing of the books," Yorke replied calmly. "You had been trying to exterminate us since our creation."

"Yes, well, we had good reason," Lena said. "You are the result of the most powerful self-perpetuating curse ever devised. It's not like you spent your time stealing cookies and tipping over milk buckets, is it?"

"Still, all's fair in love and war," Yorke smirked. "Not that there was any love between our peoples, just the occasional enslavement. Pity it didn't work out, but your sort aren't very cooperative, are you?"

"Aw, shite. I don't even want to know." Alex decided that she was, once and for all, without a doubt, done with Hal Yorke and all of his incarnations.

Lena's features tightened at the word 'enslavement.' She looked at Yorke with narrowed eyes as she stepped closer to him, measuring his response to her presence. "Was that a practice you participated in? Did having one of us on a leash make your day just a little bit brighter? Or maybe you hoped I didn't already know that proximity to my kind can calm the bloodlust in your kind. Sorry, **Lord Harry**, your attempt to teach me my own history is a complete failure. I know that my blood can kill you and I know that my proximity can calm the beast that rides you."

She took a breath to calm herself. "And as you happen to be…tied up…proximity is something you can't avoid."

"What d'you mean you can calm the blood lust?" Tom interrupted. "You mean you can bring back good Hal?"

"No, I just mean that I can turn down the volume on the hunger, scare it away sort of. Good triumphs over evil. Any Seraphin Nepos can do it." Lena's eyes never left the vampire, even though she was speaking to Tom. She could see the vampire curse thin out and shift away from her.

"Aw, that's brilliant! You can just stay close, then, and he'll be a'right? Maybe long enough to get a wash and change his clothes, even! What d'you think, Hal, can you tell the difference?" Tom was getting far too excited about his great new idea.

"Yes, Tom, I can tell the difference," the vampire broke eye contact with Lena to look at Tom as he spoke calmly, not nearly as excited as Tom thought he should be. "However, I suspect that you have overestimated our guest's interest in my personal hygiene. I'm not sure she would care to follow me into the shower, and I'm certain that she doesn't plan a long-term stay in our lovely abode." Clearly Lena's proximity had no dampening effect on the vampire's sarcasm.

"Oh yeah, right, I didn't think o' that," Tom said, crestfallen.

"C'mon Tom, it was still a good idea." Alex spoke up, feeling badly for her friend. He wanted so much to fix Hal, and it just wasn't going to happen.

Lena stepped back and turned away from Yorke. He was right, she wasn't at all interested in doing him any favors, even if it did mean showering…she swallowed involuntarily at the image.

"There is another possibility," Yorke spoke up as if something had just occurred to him. "I've never tried it of course, but I've heard that a Seraphin Nepos with enough strength can use physical contact to draw a curse out of its victim."

At Lena's expression he quickly continued. "I know, I'm no victim. I agreed to take on life as a vampire and I've made the most of it."

"Don't even think about it, bucko!" Alex jumped into the vampire's face. "You've got some scheme goin', I can feel it. Why do you want her to touch you, huh? What'll it really do?"

"It does what he says it does," Lena replied. "I've used touch to heal people physically and spiritually. It's part of my gift." At Tom and Alex's puzzled looks, she continued. "Let's say Tom fell down the stairs and broke his leg. I'd put my hands on him and concentrate and take away the broken bone. His leg would heal and I would feel the pain in my leg. Then my regenerative powers would take the pain from my leg and everything would be fine."

"Shite!" Alex exclaimed. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Hurts like hell, that's why I don't do it very often," Lena replied.

"Wait a minute, that sounds like something from Star Trek." Alex was getting suspicious now. "You sure you didn't make that up?"

"You mean 'The Empath' episode from season 3 of the original series? Where do you think Joyce Muskat got the idea? Only television script she ever sold." Lena smiled. "I should have gotten co-writer credit on that one."

"When you heal me leg, will you scare off the wolf too?" Tom was now fully committed to the story of his injury.

"No, that's not possible," Lena replied. "We can see demons and curses so we can tell when someone or something carries one. A strong Seraphin can chase off a demon because they are entities in their own right. Curses don't have a life of their own, they only exist as part of the thing they are attached to. I can destroy a curse when it's attached to a thing. I can remove some curses from people. I can't touch a werewolf curse without putting the human it has infected at risk, so no, Tom, I won't scare off the wolf when I heal your leg."

"What about the vampire curse?" Tom was clearly thinking of his friend.

"The vampire curse is like the werewolf. It can't be removed. In theory the strength of those curses can be diminished temporarily, drawn off in the same way an injury is healed. I had a werewolf friend a while back, and I drew some of the curse off of her one month when we couldn't get her to a safe place to change. Weakened her enough to keep the wolf from running loose." Lena didn't mention that she had spent the night craving chicken until she had been able to expel the wolf from herself.

"So, what about Hal? Could you take some of the vampire out of him, for a little while?"

"I don't know. I've never tried to help a vampire, 'cause I don't give a shit about vampires in general and this one in particular. Besides, I'd have to touch Mr. Creepy for it to work. Not happening."

_Not happening because the last time we touched there were fireworks that lasted for 6 months and I couldn't think straight for years._ Lena was cursing herself for coming to Wales. _It's just a magical heavenly-made bola that comes when called. Not that important really. I should go now._

"Of course. We understand. After all, helping vampires isn't really your forte, is it? You prefer to kill us." Yorke was goading her now, his curse flaunting its strength at her.

Lena knew that she could, in fact, draw the strength of the curse off of a vampire, just as she had the werewolf. She never questioned her ability to do so, just her interest. Suddenly, in the face of Yorke's challenge, she was interested.

"Oh, what the hell. I'll give it a try," she said as she stepped directly in front of the vampire, her legs brushing against the insides of his knees where his legs were tied to the chair. _No fireworks. No get-me-out-of-these-clothes-and-fuck-me-now-before -I-explode. Maybe the chemistry is as dead as he is._

She smiled to herself as she leaned forward, resting her hands on his, pleased to see the red veil of the curse thin and retreat behind his back, slipping out of her line of sight until only a pale red shadow covered Yorke's human flawlessness.

She saw his demeanor shift as she leaned in and rested a knee on the chair between his bound thighs. She saw fear enter his hazel eyes, and pain, and hope. He was still in there, buried in the blood of his victims. _What would it take to destroy that curse?_

"Honey, I'm home," she said with a wry smile, resting her forehead on his. Her battle cry, challenging the evil that owned the man, was answered in a way she couldn't have expected. Yorke's eyes flared black and he kissed her. No lover's touch, his kiss was an assault by the curse, which leaped in recognition of the hatred and anger and bitterness in her soul. A foothold!

Lena saw the curse ripple and flow toward her, spread over Yorke again and onto her, and expand as it reached out for her, dug into her. For a half-second she was afraid. _Bullshit! Fuck this! I don't run from anything!_ Resisting the urge to pull away, she instead grabbed the vampire's head in both of her hands and forced him back in the chair as she pushed back on the curse and dared it to respond. She pushed Yorke's mouth open and her tongue flicked over his teeth but found no fangs. _No chance of accidental blood-letting, then. Smart curse!_

Lena held on and drew the vampire curse into herself; it faltered and tried to pull away from her embrace. _Gotcha!_ Certain of her control over the beast, she looked triumphantly into Yorke's eyes as they returned to normal, and suddenly she realized that she wasn't being kissed by a vampire any longer, but by a man. The curse was no longer controlling him.

Hal's kiss echoed through her being, into a past she couldn't forget. 500 years and death between them and nothing had changed! She felt him warm under her touch, become human, become hers as he arched to touch her, yearning etched in every line of his body. Tom and Alex stared agape, Tom with hackles raised, as the floor trembled and the air grew electric with tension from the ancient conflict between good and evil.

Their humanity was balanced briefly by the strength of Lena's will, until the weight of the vampire landed in her soul. She began swimming in fire and blood as she drew the strength of curse from him and gave him peace, gave him humanity; she felt the darkness grow in her until it commanded her to tear away his bindings and devour him. Finally accepting that she couldn't control the beast after all, she broke free and stumbled away, dizzy and breathless. She closed her eyes, knowing they were black, and fell to her knees as she fought down the curse she had taken into herself. She clamped her mouth shut over her own fangs. _Too far. I pushed it too far._

"Thank you," Hal spoke softly after a few moments, as he watched her struggle. "I can't imagine what that cost you."

"No, you can't," she gasped, slowly dragging herself onto the sofa. "And you have no idea what it nearly cost you." She had been on the verge of killing him. Just a second longer…

When she was finally able to open her eyes again and meet his look, the gratitude she saw infuriated her. _How dare he be grateful! And he still doesn't know me! _

"What was all that? Proximity my ass!" Alex was plainly jealous.

"Sorry," Lena gave a weak smile, thankful to be brought back to earth. "But damn! He's a good kisser!" She wasn't about to let on to the battle she had nearly lost.

"Aye," Alex agreed, sinking onto the sofa next to her. "Knocked me off my feet too, and I'm already dead."

Trying desperately to find a morsel of ordinary human behavior in what he just witnessed, Tom said, "You must be a pretty good kisser yourself, what with Hal thankin' you and all."

"I was thanking her for removing my bloodlust, at least temporarily," Hal's voice was clipped, polite. "She did me a great service. I haven't felt this…human…in centuries. Not perfectly human, as in our dream world, but approaching normal, somehow." He nodded to Lena. "Again, thank you," he said awkwardly.

"I don't know how long it will take the curse to rebuild its strength in you," she replied. She decided to lower the tension a billion notches by playing it casual. "You should be okay long enough to have that quick wash and change of clothes you wanted. Not saying you need to."

"That would be wonderful," he replied. "I most certainly do need to." Tom and Alex nodded their agreement, but their concern was palpable. Hal added, "If you will stay close to hand until I am secured again…"

"Of course. Although I'm surprised you asked."

"So am I. Hmm. Maybe your touch is more effective than you expected." He ventured a slight, lopsided smile.

"Well, that's a'right then, ain't it?" Tom said happily as he moved to unstrap his friend. "Hey Lena, can you get this rope off him?"

"You might want to use it again later. Maybe Alex should learn how to handle it," Lena said. Frankly, she didn't trust herself to be close to the vampire again, so soon. "Alex, just give it a tug and say 'Let go.'"

"That's it? I can do that," Tom said.

"It won't work for you, Tom," Lena explained as he tugged unsuccessfully at the bola. "You have a curse. It doesn't respond to cursed beings, sorry."

"It ain't a curse, it's a rare gift. McNair said."

"Never mind Tom, the thing's just contrary," Alex soothed the young werewolf as she tugged on the bola. "Let go." It dissolved from around Hal and reappeared, coiled, in her hand. "Cool! Can you teach me to tie him up in it again?"

Hal glared at the ghost as Tom helped him stand from the chair. He struggled upright stiffly and stretched as he went. "C'mon mate, I'll help you upstairs." Tom half-carried the vampire forward.

Alex watched them go, on guard against any sign that Mr. Creepy was returning. Finally she relaxed and turned to Lena. "Seriously, you have to teach me how to use this thing!"


	8. Chapter 8 Epiphanies Suck

While Tom assisted Hal with his personal needs Lena showed Alex how to handle the bola, which involved thinking or speaking her intent clearly before letting it go in the right direction. Alex took her into the garden so Lena could teach her an overhand and underhand throw, both of which she practiced on an empty chair. It was just a matter of holding the end with the single metal shot and twirling the length of the rope until the two shots at the forked end were moving smoothly together. A quick release and it was done. Of course it helped that the bola automatically went where the thrower told it to go.

Lena explained that Alex could also simply wrap the bola around Hal rather than throw it at him, but Alex didn't take to that idea. Lena feared that Alex was enjoying the lesson a bit too much. She agreed to let the young ghost keep the weapon indefinitely, but made sure to leave a contact number with Tom so he could call her in case Alex left or went through her door. Tom didn't want his friend permanently bound by something they couldn't remove.

Upon being released Hal had immediately showered and changed clothes, after which he cleaned the bathroom. He did a round of press-ups and sit-ups followed by 30 minutes on the stationary bicycle, all of which helped his cramped muscles stretch and feel more like normal. When he had finished his workout Hal took another shower and shaved his beard. Finally he dressed himself in the most comfortable clothes he could find and Tom escorted him downstairs.

Hal felt safe enough to eat a piece of toast while watching through the window as Alex practiced using the bola. He avoided looking at Lena; he was uncomfortable even thinking about her after the kiss he had forced on her while controlled by the vampire. Hal recognized the vampire curse as a separate entity living in him; good Hal fought its influence and bad Hal reveled in it. He had never felt it push him further than he was willing to go, however, until today. Assaulting a Seraphin Nepos, even with a kiss, was asking for death, and Hal was far too smart to ever make that mistake.

Still, she had kissed him right back, and for a moment she had felt familiar to him, like a long-ago lover. He shook off the notion and quietly washed up his dishes and returned them to the pantry.

He didn't quite understand what she had done to him, but the effect was apparent by the fact that he hadn't once considered escaping or killing someone while under Tom's friendly guard. How ironic that a member of the species he had tried to wipe off the face of the earth had in turn helped him and his friends. He was in her debt.

"All right Tom, I'm ready for the chair," Hal said to his friend.

"Are you feelin' alright, mate?" Tom asked warily. Hal didn't typically volunteer for the chair.

"Yes, I'm still stable, but beginning to feel a little less so. Better safe than sorry." Hal wanted to get safely tied down before the Hal who would protest against it reappeared. Doing so would save everyone a lot of misery. He stood patiently as Alex wrapped the bola around him, and then seated himself for further strapping in. Lena watched quietly from across the room. She made no further attempts to be close to him.

It was late evening before Lena got away from Honolulu Heights. It would have been less late if Alex hadn't demanded a ride in the Audi, and in truth Lena loved showing it off. Alex had a fine appreciation of great cars.

It had been a challenge for Lena to keep her composure for the few hours that she spent in the house because she felt the curse still working inside her. She should have, for her own safety, left quickly to finish the process of ejecting it from her. But she had agreed to stay, so she did. Seraphin Nepos healed by drawing pain and injury out of people and into their own bodies, and then using their regenerative power to restore themselves. Spiritual healing, or exorcism, was trickier for Seraphin Nepos; it involved drawing a curse into themselves and giving their divinity, or core of goodness, the chance to defeat and disperse it. Very few Seraphins dared to try it, and those who did were careful to avoid the unbreakable curses: werewolf and vampire.

Past attempts to remove the wolf from its hosts had triggered the werewolf transformation as the curse fought to maintain control. Unfortunately the forced transformations usually led to the serious injury or death of the person who carried the wolf without affecting the curse itself. In the history of vampirism the curse had never been successfully removed from a host. In all cases where it had been attempted the exorcist had been killed in the attempt.

Thanks to Yorke's abandonment of their relationship and debauched destruction of her people, Lena's core of goodness had been shaken, weakened, and she hadn't attempted an exorcism in centuries. Instead, when required, she had chosen to draw off some of the power of a curse temporarily, a trick she had learned from Persephone* long ago. She had never had a curse actively attack her until today. Its ability to do so shook Lena to her core.

Lena concentrated on the road until she finally reached the M4 and could let her Audi stretch and roar. Her plan was to return to her suite in London and finish battling the curse on her own turf.

She turned up the volume on Adele and sang along; music wasn't one of her best gifts, but she loved it anyway. Lena needed music to keep her mind off of Hal, and the kiss, and the bloodlust that nearly consumed her. It worked until she heard herself singing "The scars of your love, they leave me breathless, I can't help feeling, we could have had it all…SHIT!" She slammed her hands on the steering wheel and veered into the Chieveley service area, screeching to a halt in a back corner, near the edge of the pavement.

"Oh my fucking god, what have I done?" She slammed both hands on the wheel to the rhythm of her curses, tears streaming down her face, then stopped abusing her poor car and simply screamed. Finally Lena got out of the car and walked into the grass, cursing at herself in the long-dead language of her childhood. She collapsed onto her knees, retching blood as her system rejected the last vestiges of the vampire.

She felt strong arms around her and a soft voice in her ear. "Hello Lovely." It was Grandpa Raphael, looking for all the world like an aging hippy with his white ponytail, horrid shirt, baggy jeans and sandals. He held her until she could stand, then walked with her back to the Audi where she leaned against the passenger door, head down.

"Grandpa, I really fucked up this time, didn't I?" Lena watched him sadly as he leaned next to her against the car. He folded his arms over his chest, his stance matching hers in acknowledgement of her desolation and need for isolation, even from him.

"Did you?" he asked lightly.

"I broke the law against commingling with cursed beings."

"You make a habit of breaking laws, you always have." He gave her a sideways smile. "Besides, you pre-date that law, so…" he nudged Lena gently—this was a family joke.

"So I can declare ex post facto?" she smiled back at him for a moment, then withdrew again.

"Lovely, I believe the vampire initiated the commingling. Don't beat yourself up over it."

"He may have started it, but I tried to finish it. Bad idea! I've never had a curse take over like that, Grandpa. I wanted to tear Yorke open and drain him dry. Son-of-a-bitch! That bloody vampire curse nearly got me." She looked at her grandfather. "And I know why."

Raphael kept silent while she gathered her thoughts. He had waited a very long time for this.

"It could get to me because for nearly 300 years I have nurtured hatred and anger and bitterness toward Hal Yorke in my soul. I gave that curse the perfect environment. I've corrupted myself. I've jeopardized my place among the Seraphin Nepos. I understand now, why you and Dad have been so worried."

"I wasn't worried, just concerned."

"Okay, but Dad has been worried and scared. I remember in the black days, you told me that I had to protect my soul above all else, because if I ever gave in to evil I would become a greater monster than any I had destroyed. You said I could tear the world to shreds."

"Yes."

"Dad looks at me sometimes as if he sees a hint of that monster, and he's scared because he knows that if it happens, he will be called on to put me down." Lena spoke softly, verbalizing for the first time a long-understood truth.

"Don't tell him," Raphael spoke just as softly. "It would break his heart if he knew you believed such a thing of him."

She nodded. "I know. Besides, Grandma would never forgive him if he hurt me," she smiled weakly. Although Lena's grandmother and mother died long ago their souls continued, experiencing more life in the heavenly realm than some people ever know in the physical confines of earth. "Until death do us part" never did apply to their marriages.

"Your Grandmother is quite formidable, but I would also be distraught." He smiled back. "What will you do?"

Lena moved into his arms for a hug and rested in his warmth and strength. She was forming an idea, but it was too heavy for her to carry alone or speak aloud. Raphael hummed a lullaby in the old language, one she had known since before her birth. He comforted her while waiting for her answer. Finally he said, "Let's begin with what we know. What is the first moral law*?"

"Love the creator and honor the creation, with the exception of those who choose evil and threaten the welfare of us all." Lena recited from memory the first lesson she had ever learned.

"The second moral law?"

"Do unto others as we would have them do unto us, with the exception of evil beings who inflict their evil upon others."

"The third moral law?"

"Walk lightly in the world, do no harm, protect all those who need protection, with the exception of those whose evil ways cry out for justice."

"The fourth moral law?"

"Forgive those who hurt you, not for their sake but for your own. You must forgive to protect your soul. Forgiveness heals the forgiver, not the forgiven." She paused. "To this law there is no exception."

"Tell me what that means. Why did I make you swear an oath not to kill Yorke? Why did the creator command you not to harm him?"

"I kill monsters to protect humanity and to serve the cause of justice. Killing him wouldn't be an act of justice, but an act of personal revenge. Revenge will destroy my soul. But I want to kill him so badly!"

"Yes."

"Grandpa, I can't forgive him for what he has done! And because I can't, I nurture and protect the evil in my own soul. I'm lost. I've failed." She finally voiced the great agony that she carried in her heart.

"So it would seem."

Lena glanced quickly at her grandpa, but his expression gave nothing away. She continued, "I can't allow him to kill again. If that happens, I will tear him limb from limb." She paused and sighed. "Checkmate."

"What?" Raphael drew her back from his chest, puzzled.

"Checkmate. I have no moves left."

"There is one, but it is the hardest move in the world," he replied.

For a long moment she was quiet, not because she didn't know the answer but because she did, and she hated it. "Aw, no! No, no, no, fuck no! Grandpa! The only move I have left is to keep him from killing. I have to keep Hal Yorke from killing again! I have to go back! I have to dedicate my life to taking care of that monster! "

As Lena finished the drive to London she began to plan the steps for her return to Honolulu Heights. She would need to return to the farm and pack her personal belongings to be shipped over. She would make sure Ruby had everything she needed to take care of things on her own. Ruby was already a legal partner with full and rights to the property, bank accounts, etc., but the two women would sit down and review the details before Lena left for what she believed would be an extended absence. In her heart Lena feared that she would never live in her beloved home again. Yorke could maintain his existence for a very long time, and the thought of him ever setting foot in her home…inconceivable.

She would have to buy Honolulu Heights, of course, and the Barry Grand Hotel. There might need to be other purchases in order for her to control the environment in which she would be guarding the vampire. She would get the London offices started on the purchases immediately, and request a written report summarizing the history of each property along with all documentation of previous ownership. In fact, a brief history of the area as a whole would be beneficial. She used the voice memo app on her cell phone to add that point to her list.

One thing that puzzled Lena was her grandfather's reaction to her decision to become the barricade between Yorke and humanity. He seemed pleased and almost relieved, as if he had already reached that conclusion and was just waiting for her to catch up. Lena loved Grandpa Raphael, but she didn't trust him to tell her everything. She sensed that he had his own agenda and was playing a long game, working toward an ending she couldn't comprehend.

Lena went directly to headquarters, parked her beloved Audi in her reserved spot, and took the executive elevator to the top floor. Her small but plush office was just as she had left it. She fired up her laptop and sent out a flurry of emails before plopping onto the leather sofa for a few hours of rest. She would fly home tomorrow—actually later today. She set the alarm on her cell phone, turned off her brain, and slept.

She woke to the sound of her alarm and the smell of coffee. She was immediately aware of someone in the little alcove that served as her kitchenette. She breathed in and smelled breakfast and her old friend Bernard's after shave. It was a comfortable combination.

"Good morning Bernard," she said as she stretched and stood up.

"Good morning. I got your email."

"I didn't tell you to bring me breakfast, I said I was stopping over and wanted to see you."

"I read the subtext. It practically screamed 'Bring me food.'" He smiled at her. "I also brought that American coffee you got me hooked on."

"Thank god you did. I'm hungry enough to eat the hind end out of a mule, and in serious need of caffeine," she said as she pulled a plate from the overhead cabinet and helped herself to toasted brioche and poached pears, with a side of fresh grapes. Bernard joined her at the table that served as a meeting and eating spot.

"I hope I've brought you something much better than mule butt." Bernard was used to her colloquialisms. "So, what's up?" he asked.

"First of all, thanks for what you did to clean up the fallout from the 'British Apocalypse.' I know it kept you busy." London didn't realize what a great protector the city had in Bernard.

"You're welcome. Chasing down a few strays was easy. There's no way I could have handled a demon of the first order, though. I'm glad you stepped in."

She shrugged off the compliment and changed the subject. "We've known each other for what, 1500 years?"

He nodded in agreement.

"Have you ever known me to do something ridiculously stupid?" Lena looked him directly in the face. She wasn't looking for Bernard to soothe her sensibilities, she wanted the truth.

"I have known you to do many things that I considered ridiculously stupid at the time, only to be proven wrong," he answered. "What are you doing this time?"

"I'm moving to Wales."

"That in itself doesn't count as ridiculously stupid. Wales can be quite lovely."

"I'm going to live with Hal Yorke and keep him from killing."

Bernard stopped in mid-chew and stared at her. He quickly choked down his food in order to reply. "Not The Hal Yorke, vampire Old One? Didn't he get blown up with the rest of them?"

"He escaped the blast. He's in Barry, with friends who are keeping him sober. I'm going to help."

"He's a vampire. Can't you just—oh wait, the edict."

"Does everyone know about that fucking edict?" Lena was beginning to wonder if she had made the front page of every newspaper in Seraphin-land.

Bernard chuckled at her discomfiture. "Does your family know your plan?"

"Just Grandpa. He helped me work it out."

"I'd pay to see the look on your dad's face when he finds out you're shacking up with Hal Yorke."

"I'm not shacking up!" Lena protested immediately, to the twinkle in her nethers as much as to Bernard. "It's not like we'll be sharing a bed."

"I wouldn't bet on it. Not at first, anyway." At her horrified expression, Bernard continued. "You realize that you will have to stay very close to him, consistently, for a while, before the curse will start to let up."

"Aww, shit. This is gonna suck so bad. Dude, you're kidding, right?"

"Sadly, no. Have you done your research on this? There's a lot you need to consider," Bernard loved research and promoted it whenever possible.

"Can you give me the bullet points? I'm flying home shortly."

"When's your flight?"

"Not taking a plane." Lena wasn't willing to deal with commercial travel right now. She needed to get started before she chickened out on the whole deal.

Bernard summarized the difficulties of vampire/Seraphin Nepos relationships neatly for Lena and gave her the specifics that went beyond the stories she had heard.

In order for the proximity to be effective, it had to begin by the Seraphin Nepos staying within a few feet of the vampire, depending of course on the strength of the individual curse and the individual Seraphin Nepos. Hence the practice of literally keeping Seraphin slaves on a leash, as vampires could usually only capture a weak Seraphin and needed to keep the slave very close in order for it to mute their bloodlust effectively. Vampires who needed a clear head for business found Seraphin Nepos slaves to be quite a benefit, and owning one quickly developed into a status symbol in the 1690's.

The system worked well for vampires until they discovered that Seraphin Nepos blood was poisonous to them, which happened quite by accident when a vampire grew tired of keeping a slave on a leash and decided to see if just drinking the blood would be any help. The vampire exploded with his first bite, giving Seraphin slaves immediate knowledge of a weapon with which they could defeat their captors.

To complicate things further, vampires who were exposed to Seraphin Nepos blood found it to be one of the most alluring substances on the planet and there were recorded cases of suicide-by-Seraphin that happened when vampires knowingly tried to drink their blood. Apparently a single sip was worth dying for.

The death knell for Seraphin slavery, however, came when vampires began using Seraphin Nepos blood to kill each other by calling in humans to draw the blood from their Seraphin slaves and mix it with human blood to disguise its true nature. The Borgias had nothing on vampire politicians.

When Mr. Snow learned of this practice he called for the immediate execution of all Seraphin Nepos, those already in captivity and any others that vampires could find. Within a span of 10 years Seraphin Nepos had progressed from being pets to being public enemy number one, and the Seraphin genocide was begun.

Lena had been unaware of the rising popularity of Seraphin Nepos slavery because she was in remote areas of Asia at the time, tracking particularly heinous criminals across the Gobi desert and into the steppes and mountains of Mongolia. By the time she had settled her business and returned to Europe, the genocide was at its peak as vampire armies swept through populated areas and Seraphin Nepos scattered and hid across the world. She joined Ammon and the few Seraphin with the strength for war, and they had brought the genocide to a swift conclusion by destroying everything remotely vampiric that they could find and sending Snow and his underlings into hiding in turn.

Except Yorke, of course. His troops had killed members of Lena's own family so she hunted him above all others. Only when she stood over his unconscious form with a knife in one hand and a stake in the other did she recognize him as her Henry. She swung the stake to kill him anyway, but her grandfather interceded and pulled her away before she touched him.

What followed for Lena was her black time, when she was held captive by her father and grandfather, under orders from the creator, until she agreed to let Yorke live.

Lena sat quietly for a few minutes following Bernard's summary of the complications of the vampire/Seraphin connection. She frowned as she rolled through her options in her mind and considered the specifics of what she was about to do. How does one go to the bathroom with a vampire? Brush one's teeth with a vampire? Change one's clothes with a vampire? Holy shit, she might as well marry the bastard!

"Aww, shit. Oh Bernard, I think I'm going to be sick. I thought I could just be in the same room, or across a wall from him, or something. But you're right, based on what I saw while I was there. He's got a ferocious curse riding him, and it won't back down." She pushed away from the table and walked to the window, not really seeing the morning around her.

"And that whole vampires-can't-resist-our-blood thing. Are you sure that's for real? It has to be an exaggeration." She turned to her old friend, looking for a little encouragement. Spending the rest of her life worrying about paper cuts and scraped shins was more than she could handle right now.

"I've read case studies. It's real." Bernard was being no help at all. "We smell different than humans, sweeter somehow, to vampires. It's because of our blood. When it reaches the open air, they find it very hard to resist."

"But look, I've been fighting vampires since they were first created, and I've never had one leap at me in an intended suicide. Well, not that I'm aware of, anyway. I guess I could have misread their intentions." She shook her head. "No, it can't be right. I was bloodied up during the fight with Caedis and Yorke didn't make a move toward me."

"How far away was he?"

"I dunno, eight feet or so. Close enough to smell my blood if he's any kind of vampire at all."

"Hmm. What did he do, then?" Bernard was clearly puzzled by Yorke's atypical response to Seraphin Nepos blood.

"He tried to escape out a window," Lena replied.

"U-huh. Are you sure he was running from the demon?"

"Shit. No, I just assumed."

"Smart vampire," Bernard replied. "Very smart. He was getting away from your blood before it could draw him in."

Lena paced the floor and considered the new layer of impossibility that Bernard had dumped on top of the already absurd complexity of what she was planning to attempt. Her anger at what she was about to put herself through overwhelmed Lena and she flung out a string of profanity that wound down to a single declaration: "I'll be a son-of-a-bitch if I'll spend my life tied to a goddamned vampire. Fuck him! Fuck him and the horse he rode in on!"

She turned back to her friend. "There's only one thing to do. I'm going to break the vampire curse."

"How?"

"No fucking clue."

Well, if anyone can figure it out, you can," Bernard said. "I have to say, though, that this may be the most ridiculously stupid idea you have ever had."

"Well, there you go then, it's bound to be a spectacular success." She gave him a weak smile as she slumped back into her chair, her mind racing. She had to admit, she agreed with Bernard's assessment.

*Persephone—goddess of the underworld and of the seasons and the harvest. She could carry curses from the living to the dead. For the purposes of this story, she's able to manipulate curses in general and taught Lena to do so as well.

*moral laws—I compiled these based on standard beliefs of what is considered good behavior. The principle of forgiveness as an action that heals the forgiver is a basic tenet of the Christian theology with which I was raised. I don't know where else it might be presented. I do know that it is very, very hard to do.


	9. Chapter 9 Lena Gets a New Pet

In just four days Lena got everything on her list accomplished and was ready to return to Barry to start her new 'career,' physically if not mentally or emotionally. She had packed up the clothes, books, and personal belongings that she would want at Honolulu Heights and had them shipped to her London office for delivery when called for. She had closed up her house; Ruby had her own home on the property and didn't need to take care of a vacant building.

Perhaps that most difficult job of all was turning her garage keys over to her long-time mechanic and saying good-bye to her automotive babies: the black Cadillac CTS-V coupe with the 556 horsepower Corvette engine and 6-speed manual transmission; the '67 Camaro SS 350 with the unbreakable Chevy small-block engine that ruled the automotive world in its time; and the 1903 Ford Model A that had ignited her love for the automobile.

In the end, it was dropping the tarp over her favorite motorcycle that nearly broke Lena's heart. It had been custom-built by Indian Larry* in 1997 based on the old-school short-fork chopper she loved. With a sword-wielding angel design on the gas tank and a tooled leather seat made to fit her butt (Larry had taken measurements), it was her prized possession. "Larry would kick my ass if he knew I was putting my baby into storage," she muttered, "but I just don't see Hal Yorke as my back warmer*, so I guess it'll have to stay home."

Lena dropped into London to pick up a few things, including property titles, reports, and her Audi, and hit the road for Barry. In an effort to prepare herself for her new life she had taken the time to create an appropriate playlist on her iPod: Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Ozzy, Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, a dash of Motorhead, and just for fun, a couple of tracks from Kid Rock's Devil Without a Cause CD, because nothing makes a road trip more fun than screaming "BAWITDABA" while head-banging down the highway. Lena was old-school like that. She suspected that the lack of long straight highways in the UK was going to be troublesome. She also suspected that the lyric "get in the pit and try to love someone" could be a harbinger of her own future.

She rolled up to Honolulu Heights as evening was setting in and approached the house with a duffle bag over her shoulder and the landlord's keys in her hand. Dressed in jeans and untucked button-down shirt, with slip-on shoes on her feet and her brown hair in a ponytail, Lena looked more like a college co-ed than a vampire nemesis.

She let herself in, calling out, "Honey, I'm home!" as she did so. Alex was holding a glass of water and straw for Hal, who was strapped into the chair but apparently coherent; Tom was sitting at the table with a sandwich. They all froze in mid-action and stared at her as she set her duffle bag on the floor.

"Hey kids, guess what? I just bought this place and you all get to live with me now!" She wasn't trying to make it sound like a plot twist in a cheesy '60's beach movie, but it came out that way.

"What?" Tom was dumbfounded. He put down his sandwich and approached her. "You mean you're gonna live with us?"

"Technically you are living with me, as I now own this place." She looked around the room. "And a major renovation is definitely in the plan."

Hal turned his head to look at her, speaking in measured tones. "I'm afraid you've run ahead of us. Could you please explain yourself?"

"Of course, sorry." Lena took a breath and directed her words at Hal. "I've decided that I can't have you running amok in the world any longer. As I am under orders not to kill you or do you harm, I'm going to live with you and keep you from killing. It's the only way I know to stop you." The trio exchanged uncomfortable looks as she continued. "If it weren't for the 'can't harm you' clause I'd just pitch you into a cave or toss you into the Atlantic or something and let you fend for yourself. As it is, I'm going to have to take a more personal approach to the problem."

She finished her explanation. "So, here I am, with a plan. Step one: In order to control the environment around us and give this—experiment—the best chance for success, I've purchased Honolulu Heights and the Barry Grand Hotel. I'm moving to Barry. Indefinitely. As of right now."

"That's crackers!" Tom shook his head as he spoke. "You can't just move in like that, take over like that. We won't let you."

She looked at him, smiling slightly. "Try to stop me."

"This is **our** home," Alex spoke in protest. "We should have a say in who lives here."

"Technically you are squatters with no rights. You have no lease; you've just been sending in cash rent and hoping nobody asked questions," Lena replied.

"That's it then!" the ghost said, getting wound up. "We'll just move right out of here and let you have the place. Right Tom?"

"Yeah, I reckon we can make do without this place."

"I would like for you to stay, of course, but if you choose to go I won't try to stop you," Lena said. "He stays." She looked Hal directly in the eyes, resolute.

"You can't keep him here if he don't want you to! That's kidnapping, ain't it? You can't do that." Tom was still thinking like a human. It hadn't occurred to him yet that Lena was quite capable of transcending human law whenever she chose.

"Try to stop me." There was definitely a threat in her voice as she moved to stand in front of Hal, still looking him in the eyes. She could see his curse shiver and dissipate as she approached.

Sensing a threat to his friend Tom rushed at Lena in order to push her away from Hal. Before he had completed a step she had a short double-bladed sword pointed at him, held casually in one hand as she continued looking at the vampire. Tom pulled up just inches away from the tip of her blade and scrambled in his brain for an effective attack strategy. As he recalled what he had seen of her in battle, he could think of nothing in his own arsenal that could stop her.

Alex began hurling things at Lena telekinetically, but before a single cup, book, or chair could reach her Lena simply unfurled her wings and wrapped them around her and Hal, protecting them both from the onslaught. She lowered her sword but kept it in hand as she waited for the ghost to figure out the futility of her actions. Hal sat poised, alert, cautious, looking at the great grey wings surrounding him and the resolute creature facing him. He was caught between man and vampire, half of him relieved to feel his hunger lessening with her approach, the other half furious and determined to escape from her grasp.

Lena sheathed her sword and called her bola into her hand. "I think it's time you found out what it feels like to be on the other end of the leash, Pet," she said as she tied a slipknot in one end of the bola and tossed the loop over his head. He struggled fruitlessly in the chair as she tightened the loop until it was snug around his neck, the two leather cords with metal shots resting on his chest like an absurd tie. She kept hold of the end with the single shot and wrapped the cord around her hand several times to guarantee her grip on Hal's new leash.

"Step two: Come to an understanding with you about how we can best get along with each other during the course of this little experiment. I believe that you need a firm hand and strict guidance in order to maintain appropriate behavior. Don't you agree, Pet?" She smiled as Alex's onslaught halted, then casually flipped her wings and sent debris scattering around the room. Lena furled her wings and stepped back from Hal's chair to let his friends have a better view of her handiwork. "What do you think, Tom? Do you really mind so much, seeing a vampire taking a dog's place?"

Tom stood with crossed arms and a silent frown. It was clear that he very much **did** mind seeing his friend at risk of being strangled. Alex moved next to Tom; she shook with exhaustion after expending all of her energy on her wasted attempt to argue with Lena. She didn't know why she had bothered, really, except that Tom had jumped in and she followed. She didn't like being bossed around, but seeing Hal with an improvised noose around his neck didn't upset her at all. In fact, Alex decided that she liked Lena's style.

Lena explained herself, "In order for this experiment to work I have to stay very close to my Pet for a while. I'm not going to camp on the living room floor and I'm not going to let him run loose just yet, so here we are. I think it's a nice look, don't you?" She turned to the furious vampire and smiled. "Don't worry, it's just until we get the curse under control enough that I can trust you not to make a run for it. Now, what say we unstrap you so you can get up and stretch."

Alex jumped to the task as Tom continued to watch. Although Lena's words made sense to him, he didn't like to see his friend being treated so rudely.

As the last strap dropped, Hal stood carefully and made sure he was steady on his feet before he charged Lena in an attempt to knock her off balance and escape. It was clear that he had planned the move, as she was the only thing between him and the door.

When Hal reached her Lena simply ducked, grabbed his arm, rolled her shoulder, and used his own impetus to throw him several feet until her leash jerked him up and he fell heavily on his back. She was on him in a flash. She grabbed an arm and leg to flip him onto his stomach, then pinned him with a knee on his lower back while she wrapped the bola around both wrists, effectively tying his arms behind his back. She moved quickly to his legs, pulling each one up by the ankle and tying them close to his bound hands. She worked with amazing speed and precision and when she was done she leaped to her feet and threw up both hands.

"Time, ladies and gentlemen, is 5.7 seconds, a new arena record! Let's give that little lady a big round of applause, folks! She sure does know how to rope a steer!" Alex and Tom stared at Lena, certain that she was absolutely stone cold crazy as she played rodeo announcer and performer all at once, bowing and waving to her imaginary audience.

Hal, on the other hand, was just trying not to choke himself. The weight of his legs pulled on the bola and caused it to tighten around his throat. His shoulder sockets and upper arm muscles were on fire but he didn't dare shift them because doing so would also pull on the cord around his neck. If he relaxed any part of himself it put strain on another part and threatened to choke him. Rage overtook him and he began struggling and cursing Lena while coughing and gasping for air.

Unfazed, she grasped the bola near his hands and feet, lifted him off the ground, and carried him several feet before setting him down on the floor in front of the sofa. She quickly and carefully loosened the noose around his neck so he could breathe before speaking to him. "I'm going to sit with you and keep your head raised so you can breathe a little easier. Before you go all bad-ass vampire on me, please remember that biting me is a death sentence for you."

She sat on the floor with her back against the sofa, lifted his head in her hands, and eased under him so she could rest his head on her thigh. She turned his head away from her as she set it down, and once again loosened the noose around his neck. She laid one arm across the sofa cushions and took hold of the bola where it held his hands and feet together and lifted slightly, bearing the weight of his limbs so he no longer had to contort himself to keep from cutting off his airway. She murmured a few syllables in the old language and the bola lengthened, giving Hal's upper legs and shoulders room to relax toward the floor. He should no longer be in any physical discomfort. He took a deep breath but remained silent, his eyes closed, his face tense.

Tom and Alex moved carefully to sit on the sectional facing Hal and Lena, afraid of what would happen to Hal if they made a wrong move. Lena watched them closely.

She continued talking to Hal, watching his profile as she did. "I'm not allowed to harm you, but there's nothing in the rules about shame, humiliation, or degradation, so apparently I'm free to practice them as much as I choose," she said calmly. "Of course, they are outside my purview but a quick read through your dossier gave me plenty of very creative examples to try. Do you recognize this one?"

"I never—" he gasped out the words, a reflex, a defense, a hope that Lena didn't know as much about him as she seemed. The last thing he needed was for her to turn Tom and Alex against him, and too much truth could do that.

"You don't remember your little game in the Luxembourg Ardennes in 1832? You tied up your victim just like this before hoisting him up on a rope and hanging him from a tree limb. She tugged gently on the bola to remind Hal of the torment such a hanging would have caused his human victim. "I can't hang you up like that because I'm not allowed to harm you. Not in any pain at the moment, are you?"

"No." He spoke quietly.

"You were very inventive, Pet, I'll give you that. Tying a rope around the poor guy's waist before having your boys hoist him up the tree was a stroke of genius." She leaned forward and almost whispered in his ear, "Clever Pet, making up a new tug-o-war game for you and your little vampire friends to play. How many of you did it take before you pulled him apart?"

"I don't recall. I've made up so many games; I can't be expected to remember all of the details." Hal opened his eyes to see Tom and Alex staring at him in horror. He quickly closed them again, sensing that he was losing any defense against Lena that his housemates might have been willing to give him.

Lena felt the mood in the room swinging in her favor, and she pushed her advantage. She had to make her point before she could dare to let him go. "Your naïve little friends are only just beginning to realize what you are, Pet, but I already know. You don't just kill people, you make them suffer; you torture and terrorize and rape and maim. Your freedom puts the world at risk. This is why I must keep you bound to me."

Tom interrupted. "I don't know what you're trying to do, Lena, but it ain't right. You're treating Hal like a prisoner."

"He is a prisoner, Tom. He's my prisoner until I'm certain that the vampire no longer controls him."

"Will you be carrying me around the house, then? Or will you allow me to maneuver myself?" Hal's quiet voice contained a delicate note of sarcasm, a form of defense against his own helplessness.

"I'll let you up in a bit, once I think it's safe. Did you need to go somewhere?" Lena replied with her own touch of sarcasm.

"Not at present, but I will eventually need to use the facilities, and shower and change clothes. How do you propose to supervise those activities, my lady?" Hal turned his head in an attempt to make eye contact, then wished he hadn't as Lena looked down at him with fire in her eyes and a cold smile.

"I don't propose to supervise anything that I don't think you need," she replied. "And I don't think you need nearly as many conveniences as you think you do. For example, I think you can go for quite a while without the luxuries of showers and clean clothes. After all, your captives don't usually get to wash up do they? And most of them don't get to keep their clothes at all, let alone get clean ones."

Hal was silenced by her return to his dossier of atrocities. He closed his eyes again and waited for the next blow.

"How many women have you chained up in basements and cellars and dungeons? How many have you kept tied to posts in barns and stables? How many times have you torn the clothes off a woman just to laugh at her humiliation before you mauled her to death, or worse, to near-death. Because it isn't just the blood is it? It's the power over your victims that really turns you on. Why else would you string them along for days or weeks, teasing them with death and taking it away while they beg you to kill them?"

"God in heaven!" Alex whispered with a shudder as she remembered his hands on her, his lips on her. The thought of Hal touching her again turned her stomach.

Lena paused for a moment, concerned that she was enjoying herself too much. Spending time near the vampire curse was risky for Lena; she had already proven vulnerable to its influence. It could be trying to reach into her again. She studied herself for a moment, carefully examining her leg where Hal's head rested on it. She could see a faint red shadow, like blood pooling and oozing out from him over her thigh.

"How do you feel?" she asked Hal quietly.

"Humiliated at being tied up like this," he said bitterly. "Defeated." He spat out the word as if he was saying what he believed she required of him.

"Defeated? Really? I find that hard to believe. Hal Yorke never admits defeat," she said with a slight tease in her tone, using his name for the first time since her arrival.

He twisted his head, trying to look up at her again. "Thwarted then, a temporary position," he said.

"That sounds more like the truth." She smiled. "So here we are. We have to decide what happens next. If you run I will catch you. If you hide I will find you. There is no sanctuary on earth for you any longer." She paused before returning to the specifics of their domestic situation.

"I can, in fact, carry you around the house if I have to. I can cut your clothes off when they get too rancid for me to stand any longer, and I can drop you into a bathtub when you start to reek. That's a bit labor intensive, however, and I'd rather you do some of your own self-care. I prefer not to be your nursemaid."

"I would rather you not attempt that position either. I fear you don't have an aptitude for it," Hal replied.

Without another word Lena untied Hal's feet and hands as quickly as she had tied them. He lay quietly for a moment to allow the circulation back into his limbs.

"The leash stays until I'm comfortable taking it off."

"I am not able to remove it, so I must accept it." Hal sat up carefully as he spoke, leaning against the sofa next to her.

"I will also tie you up when and how I see fit until I'm certain you won't try to run again. Take now, for example," she said as she tied his wrists together in front of him.

"I don't intend to run," Hal replied as he watched her. He made no attempt to stop her.

"What **is** your intent?"

Hal gave her a quick appraisal; a smile flitted across his face as he replied. "There are worse creatures to be bound to than you, my lady."

"Great," Lena replied sarcastically. "So, is there a bedroom in this place with two beds? 'Cause you and I just became roommates." She got to her feet and held out a hand to pull Hal up after her.

"There is one, as a matter of fact," he replied, keeping his voice neutral and his face expressionless. "Shall I show you? Would you like the grand tour while we're at it? You will be thrilled to learn the merits of your purchase." He couldn't resist a subtle return to sarcasm with the last sentence, and Lena responded in kind.

"Lead on, then. I can't wait for your presentation."

With that Hal led the way through the house, with Tom and Alex joining them for the trip. Lena had already studied the original house plans but she wanted to see how the space was being used. She also wanted to see how her prisoner handled himself. Hal didn't flinch or change his bearing in the least, despite having his hands tied together and a noose snug around his neck. In fact, he was so composed that Lena reckoned he was even more dangerous than she had suspected; quick to think on his feet and adapt to a potential threat; calm and able to assume a leadership role even under these circumstances. She filed the information away for later consideration.

The tour ended at the guest room with two single beds. They all looked at the accommodations Hal and Lena would be using: Tom and Alex with some trepidation, Hal with a touch of anticipation, and Lena with an eye for dimension.

"They aren't attached to the wall or anything are they? I need them to be moved closer together. I want about a foot of space between them," she said.

Tom jumped to the job immediately and shoved the near bed closer to the far one, while Hal gave Lena a look and murmured, "They can be moved as close together as you like my lady. Or if you'd rather, there's a good-sized bed stored in the attic…"

"Sorry Pet, but I need a little space. Thanks for offering though; if I get cold during the night I'll pop over for a cuddle. Oh wait, you aren't exactly warm-blooded are you?" She offered Hal a slim, cool smile as she continued. "I'm only interested in getting as close as the curse requires. As it weakens I'll be moving those beds apart. Eventually we should each be able to have our own rooms."

"So now what?" Tom asked.

"Now you go on about your business and we will go on about ours," Lena answered. "I'll need to bring up my bag…"

"Got it," Alex said as she deposited Lena's duffel bag on the floor. She had rent-a-ghosted it from the entryway while Lena was still speaking. "Now I'll just go on about **my** business, which is watching the telly." With that, Alex disappeared.

Tom stood awkwardly for a moment. "Right, well, I reckon I'll go finish me sandwich," he said, and he quickly left the room.

Hal and Lena listened to his footsteps fading down the stairs as they stood, less than three feet apart, each frowning and thinking of the logistics of their situation.

"Well. I need to piss." Hal looked at Lena as he spoke.

"What a coincidence," she replied.

They moved toward the bedroom door. "Ladies first," Hal said politely, gesturing with his bound hands.

"Not a chance." She wasn't ready to turn her back on him.

"Very well."

Hal tried the same move at the entrance to the bathroom. "Ladies first?"

"Nope."

He stepped into the bathroom and looked around. "Christ, how can he make such a mess in only four days!"

Lena whistled at the scene as she moved into the room. "Your Tom is a very sloppy boy," she said.

Hal gestured toward the grimy toilet. "Ladies first."

"You know what? Fuck it, I'll chance it," Lena said as she gingerly put down the toilet seat. "Although this does remind me of the old days and squatting over a ditch or a hole in the ground."

"You're old enough to have done that?"

"Older than you, Fangboy."

"Really? You're holding up well," Hal smirked. He was clearly waiting for her to pull down her jeans.

"No free peeks, Pet. Turn around, face the wall, eyes front."

He smoothly obeyed her command. "Are you shy? Or hiding something?"

"What do you mean?" Lena said as she perched carefully on the toilet.

"Hidden wings, hidden weapons. Makes me wonder what else you might be hiding. Do you resemble a human woman, then, anatomically?"

"I am human, anatomically."

"Female bits all in place?"

"Currently they're female bits."

Hal swung around so quickly that he nearly gave himself whiplash. His eyes went directly to Lena's crotch, which was covered by her shirt tail, then up to her eyes. She arched an eyebrow. He turned back around and stared intently at the wall in front of him until she finished her business, flushed the toilet, and moved to the sink to wash her hands.

"I love modern technology," she said randomly.

"What?" He handed her a semi-clean hand towel from the towel bar next to him on the wall.

"This," she said, waving her hand to take in the bathroom. "is the most amazing thing ever invented. She handed the towel back to Hal, who replaced it on the towel bar as neatly as he could. "I love modern transportation and communication but modern plumbing is by far the best."

"Thinking back to the squalor we used to live in—" Hal moved to the toilet and flipped up the seat.

"—and the stench in the cities—" Lena moved along, staying automatically within three feet of him in order to keep his leash from tightening.

"—it's no wonder there were plagues—" he undid his trousers.

"—and disease killed so many people." Lena completed their sentence as Hal assumed the position. He turned to look at her. "No free peeks."

"Right. But I don't trust you."

He arched an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll watch you in the mirror."

She turned her back on him and focused on the mirrored medicine cabinet hanging over the sink.

"You do realize that I don't have a reflection," Hal said as he began his business at the toilet.

"You don't, but the vampire does."

"I am the vampire."

"I mean the vampire curse. It looks like a red shadow. I can see your shape, but not enough detail to count as peeking. I can tell that you aren't trying to attack me while my back is turned."

Hal finished and tucked himself back into his pants but left his trousers undone as he moved to wash his hands. "I'd like to shower," he said, choosing to ignore her prior commentary about his personal hygiene needs.

Lena handed him the hand towel. "Okay."

He took the towel in his bound hands, dried them fairly well, and offered it back to her. Then he held out his hands to suggest that she untie him.

"Nope."

He sighed. "Shall I shower with my shirt on, then?"

She eyed the shirt. "How well do you like that shirt, anyway?"

"Much less than I did when I put it on four days ago."

"Good." She pulled a small switchblade knife out of the front pocket of her jeans, a pocket that Hal would have sworn was empty. She flicked open the blade and he noticed that it had the same odd soft glow as her swords. _Another heavenly weapon, then. Where does she keep them all?_ he thought.

Lena caught his shirt sleeve at the wrist and held the fabric in one hand while she ran the knife blade up his arm and across his shoulder to his neck, slicing the fabric cleanly. She moved to the other side and did the same, but the blade slipped and grazed Hal's skin along his collarbone, leaving a burn where the blessed blade touched his body. He flinched and caught his breath. It felt like he had been kissed by fire.

Lena immediately put her hand over the burn, winced for a moment, then removed her hand from his shoulder. The burn was gone—she had healed him. He looked at his shoulder, then at her.

"Why did you do that? I regenerate, you know."

"Reflex." Standing slightly behind him, she tugged on the hem of his shirt and it dropped to the floor at his feet. As she watched it fall it occurred to her that Hal was standing very close to her with undone trousers and no shirt. _Just like old times,_ she thought as she took a healthy look up and down his frame. _Too bad he's a god-forsaken vampire. This could be all kinds of fun._

"You said that you don't heal people very often. How is it a reflex?" Hal moved to get his shower kit and a clean towel off of a shelf in the corner; Lena moved in tandem with him.

"I don't heal people very often because I don't spend much time with people. I live alone. It's easier."

When Hal opened the shower door a strange guttural noise escaped from his throat. Lena peeked around him into the shower stall and wrinkled her nose. "Do you suppose Tom pissed in the shower?"

"All men piss in the shower," Hal replied. "It's a privilege of our sex. Although other me never would do it, much too controlling to give himself the pleasure." He shook his head sadly before adding, "If he was here he'd be screaming for marigolds and boiling water right now," he said. "As it is, I'm still tempted."

Lena stepped back to the end of the leash. "The first renovation this house gets is a second bathroom. With a locking door and one key."

Hal gave her a look. "Okay," she said, "two keys."

Hal set up his shower supplies and kicked off his shoes. Lena stayed back the full length of the bola/leash as he leaned against the wall to pull off his socks and work his trousers down his legs one side at a time, slowed by the rope around his wrists. She watched the mirror carefully as he struggled to undress. He dropped his pants and stepped into the shower stall, turned on the water, cursed because it was cold, and finally got it adjusted to his comfort.

Lena heard his sigh of relief as the water poured over him and his grumbles as he washed his hair with his limited functionality. His frustration rose when he tried to wash his body and realized that he simply couldn't reach some areas.

"A little help?" he inquired.

"Nope," Lena turned around as she spoke and discovered that the shower doors were startlingly clear. "Nice ass."

"No help, no peeking," he replied as if he were in charge.

She turned back around and closed the toilet lid in order to sit down. The lid was surprisingly clean. Apparently it was seldom used.

Hal continued trying to wash himself with his wrists tied together. He dropped his bar of soap. "Bugger!"

"Poor word choice there, Pet," Lena laughed. "Never say that when you drop the soap."

"Piss off," Hal replied, his veneer of civility waning as his frustration rose. "There's no way I can do this with my hands tied! And I've got metal balls lying on my chest like bull's bollocks! Jesus Christ woman, what are you trying to do to me?"

Lena admitted that he was right, it would be impossible for him to shower effectively with his hands tied and a snug noose around his neck. Because she had gotten a few good whiffs of him since binding him to her, Lena decided that a clean Hal was to her advantage. She called the bola into her hands.

He picked up his soap. "Thank you," he said as he began washing in earnest.

"It's temporary."

"I assumed as much. Need me to save you some hot water?"

"No, help yourself. I'll clean up in the morning, after I've made you a blindfold."

When Hal turned off the water in the shower Lena moved to stand in front of the bathroom door, a position that gave him room to dry off while blocking his exit. She got her bola and began tying a slipknot in the end with a single metal shot, keeping her eyes downcast and listening carefully for sounds of aggression in his movements.

Hal looked at her, amused. "You are very carefully avoiding eye contact, my lady," he said as he dried off.

"No peeking," she replied.

"That was your rule, not mine. I'm not actually that shy."

"It isn't about being shy, it's about keeping a certain distance between us."

"Ah. No more kisses, then?" He had thrown away his shirt, put his dirty but salvageable clothes in a hamper, and now approached her with his shoes in one hand while holding a towel around his waist with the other.

She put the leash around his neck and settled it in place, careful to touch him no more than necessary. She was hoping not to cause any movement from the bulge under his towel. "Look Hal, you're a beautiful man and if you weren't a vampire I'd be on you in a hot second," she said. At his arrogantly pleased expression she continued. "But you are a vampire, which means that when I look at you I see you covered in a film of blood. It is a barrier between us that I cannot pass, a reminder of the edict against Seraphin Nepos commingling with cursed beings, and a visual turn-off that chills me right down."

"Ah." Hal was taken aback by her description of him. She stepped aside and let him lead out the door and down the hall to his room. "And this film of blood, is that how you gauge a vampire's strength?"

"Yes."

"Then I won't bother trying to delude you. It would be an insult to your perceptivity."

Once in his room Hal took off the towel and draped it over the foot of the bed to dry. He put his shoes in the wardrobe and put on a clean pair of boxers. "Do you intend to stay up much longer?" he asked Lena.

"No, I'm ready for bed whenever you are," she replied while carefully looking away from him. "Long day. Flew over from the U.S. this morning, been going ever since."

Hal usually slept in his boxers, but he hesitated for a moment, then got a pair of white cotton shorts that Alex had called his "Chariots of Fire" shorts. He wasn't sure why she said that, something to do with an old movie. They were lightweight and comfortable enough to sleep in, and he put them on out of consideration for Lena, a move that in itself puzzled him a bit. Apparently her influence went beyond controlling his hunger for blood and moved into the realm of calling to his better nature. Hal wasn't entirely sure he liked that realm, especially if it meant the reappearance of stuffy, boring, exhausting good Hal.

"I'd like to shave the beard," he said as he turned to Lena.

She nodded her okay and he proceeded to spread his damp towel over the sink in the corner of his room, after which he got an electric men's shaver with a 'keep the sexy stubble' attachment and gave himself a quick once-over, dropping the majority of his beard into the towel for later disposal. He folded up the towel and dropped it onto the floor by the sink, washed his face, cleaned the shaver head quickly, and turned back to Lena. "That'll do for tonight."

They went down the hall to the next room, the one they would be sharing, where Lena tied Hal's wrists together again and tied him to the frame of the bed further from the door. Only after he was secured did she get an oversized t-shirt from her duffel bag and prepare for bed. The t-shirt was bright green and had an empty picture frame on the front, with the slogan "World's Greatest Chameleon" under it. Hal eyed it dubiously. He was rather hoping for something more form-fitting, with a bit of lace and a ruffle or two.

"Turn around," she said.

He sighed and turned around on the bed, secretly planning to sneak a peek while she undressed. He hadn't gotten settled when the shirt she had been wearing landed over his head. Clearly she had anticipated his interest. _Damned bloody curse,_ he thought. _It must have given me away._ He waited quietly until she plucked the shirt off of him, then turned around to watch her toss it into a corner where her jeans and bra were already laying.

She sat at the foot of her bed and removed the hair band from her ponytail, allowing her soft brown hair to fall around her shoulders. She spoke as she gave it a few quick strokes with a brush, put it back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck, and tossed the brush onto her duffel bag where it sat on the floor a few feet away.

"I'm tying you into bed here in a sec."

"Haven't you already?"

"Much more thoroughly than that." She untied him from the bed frame. "Let's get you tucked in, then."

Hal pulled back the bedspread and top sheet and slid into bed, feeling completely ridiculous, humiliated, and angry once again. He lay on his back with his arms on top of the covers while she tied the bola to one side of the frame, tossed it under the bed, brought it up to the other side of the frame, and finally tied the end with two metal shots around his wrists. He couldn't move without great difficulty, let alone sit up or reach her in the next bed over.

"I see the bollocks are back," he said in disgust as he looked at the metal shots hanging from his wrists.

"Within reach, for extra fun this time," she replied as she shut off the light and got into her own bed.

"I snore relentlessly when I sleep on my back," Hal warned.

"So do I," she replied with a chuckle. "And based on what I had for lunch today, I expect to be farting prodigiously as well."

"Could you be any more profane!" His disgust was apparent.

"Well, I could be a vampire," she said dryly. "Good night, Fangboy." And with that Lena turned on her side, facing away from him, and went to sleep.

*Indian Larry—motorcycle-building genius and biker extraordinaire. RIP

*back warmer—girl on the back of your motorcycle


	10. Chapter 10 Ownership

Lena woke up early the next morning, as she did every day. She trusted herself completely and trusted her weapons as well, so she had found it easy get a good night's sleep with a vampire tied up a few feet away. She was in that respect an old soldier used to the demands of battle; she had learned to sleep when she could and to rest while remaining alert to danger.

She got out her laptop and reviewed the list of things that had to be dealt with right away, including the installation of a secure wireless network in the house so she could take care of her business affairs. She had already contacted a local carrier, O2, and scheduled the installation for later that day.

For now she could check email on her iPhone. Most phone calls would wait until later. She checked her calendar—only one meeting for the morning, and that was here at the house at 10am. She had already called in a contracting firm to begin renovations immediately on the house and the hotel: a husband and wife team with Seraphin blood on both sides of the family. They had no exceptional powers except the ability to recognize supernatural beings, but that in itself would be very useful on this job.

Seraphin Nepos typically didn't marry within the species because the genetic risk of producing monsters had proven too great. In fact, there was an edict against it. Georgia and Bill Harriman had agreed not to have children in order to have the pleasure of spending their lives together. Lena had worked with them before and admired them personally and professionally.

The only phone call Lena made was to Tom, who was already at work at the hotel. Cleanup had been finished and the Barry Grand had reopened with a skeleton crew of employees. There were a few guests, either because they were oblivious to the fact that the hotel had been Hatch's home and the epicenter of the British Apocalypse, or because they were aware of it and curious.

She informed Tom that Bill Harriman would be at the hotel about 10am and asked him to escort the man through the premises. Tom was shaken at first because he thought she had hired a new manager, but Lena explained that she wanted to upgrade and modernize the hotel and that Harriman was simply the contractor she planned to use. As hotel manager, Tom would be onsite supervisor of the renovation and she wanted him to let her know what he thought of Harriman after their tour of the premises. Tom's ego was appropriately propped up by her explanation and he was happy to do as she asked.

Lena had returned to Honolulu Heights with the assumption that things would go as she had planned. After all, who was going to argue with her?

Unwilling to wake Hal from what appeared to be a deep and restful sleep, Lena did her best to occupy herself in the close quarters of their room. She did some quiet stretches to loosen up her muscles after the long day yesterday. She put her clothes away in the bureau of what she had decided would be her room. Finally Lena ran out of distractions and had only him to focus on. Hal was still sleeping like the dead; his curse was a thin pale pink shadow over his flesh, almost a blush rather than a separate entity. Apparently her presence was already working.

She sat quietly on a corner of her bed and studied her former lover's face. She had always enjoyed watching Henry sleep—he had looked young, undamaged by the life that he seldom mentioned but that had already begun etching delicate lines in his skin. So much pain, so much grief, so much death in his brief two decades: she had mourned his loss of innocence and delighted in making him as happy as she could. Human life is such a tenuous thing.

He was there, under the blush of someone else's blood. As long as his hazel eyes remained closed and his bow-shaped mouth remained shut, she could pretend that the creature in front of her was her Henry. As long as she could avoid the cold hunger of his stare and the twisted evil of his voice, she could give herself a reason not to draw her swords and send them both to hell. She felt the weight of shackles again and returned to the blackness of her own imprisonment as she pondered her future at Honolulu Heights.

Tears slid down her face. After four days of non-stop action, Lena had time for reflection. She didn't like the thoughts that flooded her mind: this curse is unbreakable; this monster knows how to kill me; this man has already ruined me. _Fuck this, I have got to move!_ She decided to run down the hall for a quick shower while Hal slept. Georgia Harriman would be there soon and Lena wanted to get herself together before the meeting. Besides, it would be nice to shower without dealing with a blindfolded Hal and his attitude. She laid out her clean clothes, changed into a dressing gown, grabbed her toiletries kit, and slipped quietly out of the room.

She heard him raving incoherently as soon as she turned off the water. It sounded like he was tearing apart the bed and possibly himself with it. Lena threw on her dressing gown and tied it as she ran down the hall calling for Alex. She stopped in the doorway to their room, horrified to see Hal contorting himself against his restraints, eyes black and fangs out, the curse gleaming red and writhing across the surface of his body. The bed frame had broken into pieces.

She called the bola off him, afraid that he was breaking bones in his struggle. Alex appeared in the doorway as Hal leaped at Lena, intent on biting her, probably killing her, although drawing her blood would only be fatal to him. Lena unfurled her wings and flipped him back onto the bed with one flick, but he leapt at her again. She flung him back again in the hope that the shock of landing would wake him up or bring him to his senses, but it didn't work. Hal was acting like a madman. He leaped at her again.

"Alex! I can't hurt him, I can't hurt him!" Lena called out to the ghost for help. Alex grabbed Hal in mid-leap and they both disappeared. Lena heard his voice from the cellar and ran, nearly flew, down the stairs to the room at the base of the cellar stairs. Alex appeared in front of the sturdy door and slid the deadbolt a second before Hal's body hit it with a thud on the other side. Alex spun around, furious.

"What the fuck was that!"

"I'm sorry, Alex, I'm so sorry. I didn't know! I've never done this." Lena slumped against the wall. "For fuck's sake, I was only gone for 10 minutes!"

"Look, this is your mess, so I'll leave you to clean it up," Alex said, pointing toward the locked door. "But don't think I'll be there to save your arse every time you try something stupid, okay?" The ghost disappeared.

Hal pounded on the door, incoherent, yelling threats and obscenities. Lena wasn't sure he was entirely awake yet, but she could tell he was still being controlled by the curse. Unsure how to influence him without risking injury to him in the process, Lena simply stood against the door and pressed the length of her body against it. He sensed her immediately. The yelling quieted, then ceased. The pounding ended and she heard him shift his body to match her own through the door.

"My lady." The words were muffled by the sturdy door between them.

"Pet."

"Did you leave me?"

"I showered without you."

"Clearly that was a mistake," he replied. "I suggest you make sure it doesn't happen again."

"I agree. For now." She paused, then asked, "What happened?"

"I had a bad dream," he replied. It was more than a bad dream. Hal had shifted from the first peaceful sleep he had had in centuries into a nightmare of fire and pain. He was tied to a burning cross; an angel stood poised with a stake at his heart. As fire consumed his flesh the stake penetrated his chest. He was about to combust into flaming ash when the ropes disintegrated and he was free to attack the angel who threatened him.

Now that he was fully awake he realized that he had, in fact, attacked Lena, a move that could easily have gotten him killed. To say that he was upset was an understatement. Although his voice was carefully neutral in tone, Hal was livid at being tied up and abandoned by her; he was humiliated by her arrogant assumption of his subjugation; he was determined to get a little of his own back. After all, she wasn't allowed to hurt him and her ridiculously prudish attitude, which had led her to leave him in order to shower in private, needed a good shaking up. His mouth twisted in an evil grin as he considered his next move.

"Apparently your dream was a doozy," she said. "How are you now?"

"Awake. Come in and see for yourself."

As she unlocked and opened the door he moved back into the shadows of the room, avoiding the shafts of light from the opening door and from the grated window above him on the far wall. Lena hoped he was trying to give her room to enter, but she suspected that he was keeping her from seeing him clearly. She considered asking him to turn on the light, or at least to show her where the switch was, but decided that he would take it as a sign of weakness on her part.

Her spidey sense was tingling; there was no threat of violence, but something wasn't quite right with him. She could see a glimmer of red surrounding him as she approached, turning the bola into a noose in her hands once more as she did.

Hal stood quietly, apparently unwilling to protest as she lifted the noose over his head and dropped it around his neck. When both of her arms were extended he suddenly grabbed the front of her dressing gown and yanked it open to expose her naked breasts. Before the fabric stopped moving he had pulled her to him in a full-body hug and deeply invasive kiss. He bore down on her with one arm firmly around her back as his other hand cupped her butt and forced her against him so she had the full effect of the growing bulge in his shorts.

Lena froze for a moment as the feel of his skin against her own took her back 500 years to a time when she had welcomed his aggressive approach and matched it with her own. The feeling was quickly overcome by her disgust and outrage at the vampire's behavior. This beast wasn't her Henry, it was another species altogether. With a growl she shoved him off of her and punched him in the mouth hard enough to throw him backward several feet into the wall.

She quickly closed up her dressing gown as the thought flashed through her mind that a messenger from the creator could materialize at any moment after the right hook she just landed, which clearly broke the edict against hurting Hal. At the least she expected her dad to pop in with a comment on her technique and the suggestion that a straight right would have worked just as well.

When nothing supernatural occurred other than Hal's ability to remain conscious after that punch, Lena figured she was being given a little leeway to handle her current situation. She yanked on the bola and tightened the noose around his neck as he struggled to his feet, spitting blood and laughing. He wiped his hand on his mouth to catch the blood that was starting to run from one corner, and sucked it off his fingers.

"Waste not, want not," he said with a grin.

As she half-dragged him out the door of the cellar room he continued, "I thought you weren't supposed to hurt me. Should we be expecting a lightning bolt from heaven?"

"Apparently I got a pass on this one," she responded as she grabbed his hands and tied his wrists together. "I guess heaven agrees that you deserved it."

He gave her a wicked smile as he met her eyes. "It was worth it."

Alex popped her head through the open door to the cellar steps, interrupting them and saving Hal from another punch in the face. "Someone's at the door."

"Is it 10 already? Shit, Alex, it's the contractor I hired for the renovation. Her name's Georgia Harriman. Can you let her in?" Lena barely looked away from Hal as she spoke.

"Of course I can let her in," Alex replied sarcastically, "because an invisible 'welcome to our house, come on in' works spectacularly." She paused for Lena's reply, but when she realized that the conversation was over she huffed away to open the door.

As soon as Alex was gone Hal continued speaking. "I know you enjoyed it too, my lady. I can tell by the beating of your heart."

"You mistake anger for attraction," she replied as she pointed him up the stairs ahead of her. "That probably happens to you all the time."

He nearly brushed up against her as he moved past, inhaling deeply as he did. "Say what you like," he spoke over his shoulder as they went up the stairs to the main floor, "but I detect the faint scent of arousal."

"All right Hal, I admit it. Punching you in the face turns me on," Lena responded as they stepped into the hallway to see Alex and an attractive, middle-aged professionally dressed woman gaping at them.

Georgia Harriman had worked with Lena Perennis on two other properties in the UK. She knew her to be a forceful, determined, decisive woman as well as a Seraphin Nepos of great power. She had never seen her in quite this way, however. As much as she tried, Georgia couldn't keep a straight face while she took in Lena in a damp silk dressing gown with her hair a wet mop on her head, leading a gorgeous, nearly-naked bleeding vampire with a noose around his neck. She opened her mouth to speak, but only managed a cough. She tried again and got out two words and a punctuation mark.

"Role playing?"

"Sadly, no," Hal answered suavely. "We've had a falling out."

"You have my sympathies," Georgia said to Hal.

"You do know he's a vampire," Lena interrupted.

"Still." Georgia looked at Lena and smiled slightly. "Am I early?"

"No, we just got sidetracked," Lena replied. "Alex, would you mind getting Georgia a cup of tea or something while we get dressed?" She didn't attempt to explain what was going on or bother to look embarrassed. Lena had long ago reached the point in her life where she truly didn't give a rat's ass about appearances. Hal, on the other hand, was infuriated to be paraded in front of Lena's business associate in this fashion. He didn't show it, but his curse throbbed with fury and gave him away.

Alex was thrilled to take Georgia into the kitchen for a cup of tea. Alex was thrilled that Georgia had responded to her when she threw open the door and announced, "Welcome to our crazy abode! Come right in!" Alex was thrilled at the thought that the Honolulu Heights renovation meant contact with people who could actually see her and talk to her. She escorted Georgia into the kitchen while questioning her about the number of Seraphin Nepos she had working on her crew, and were any of them male, good-looking, and single.

Lena directed Hal to the room they had shared the previous night, where he studied the bed he had destroyed while she dressed. Lena turned three-quarters away from Hal and held his leash in her teeth while pulling on her underpants and dark-wash jeans under the dressing gown. She tucked the metal shots of the bola into a jeans pocket, dropped her dressing gown and quickly put on her bra and a sapphire blue t-shirt. Finally she stuck flat shoes on her feet and grabbed a comb from the dressing table.

"Your turn," she said. She looked at the bed. "We'll deal with that mess later."

They went to Hal's room where he dressed while she combed her hair. She untied his hands so he could dress and left the leash tucked into a pocket of her jeans in order to have both hands free to work on her hair. She could see the vampire curse getting thin and pale as she continued her proximity to Hal and moved with him as needed in order for him to reach his clothes and shoes.

Once fully dressed he turned to her, rubbing his jaw ruefully. "You pack a punch."

"You got off easy, Pet. The last guy who tried that move on me sang soprano for the rest of his life." Her eyes narrowed as she saw him look intently up and down her body. "Which lasted about 5 minutes." There was clearly a threat in her voice.

"I'll keep that in mind, but I think we both know that threat doesn't pertain to me. Besides, it only seems fair, my lady, that our proximity to each other should benefit us both."

"I don't give a fart in hell what you think is fair," she replied as she retied his wrists and tossed her comb on his bed. She noticed his slight wince but wasn't sure if it was because of her language or because his need for order was beginning to reassert itself. She continued. "I'd be happy to truss you up again and put a gag in your mouth as well, if that's what it takes for you to back off."

They moved in tandem toward the stairs, she with the end of his leash in one hand, he taking the lead because he knew she would insist on it. "Perhaps it is in my best interests to call a truce for now," he said over his shoulder as they entered the kitchen. "I will agree to make no more sexual advances toward you if you will agree to refrain from approaching me in a similar manner."

Georgia and Alex looked up from the table where they were deep in conversation. Lena knew that Hal was playing to the crowd and trying to upset her in front of other people. She didn't rise to the bait.

"Well, as I said last night, I'll do my best to keep an appropriate distance between us," she said dryly, before turning to shake Georgia's hand.

"It's good to see you again. Has Alex been keeping you entertained?"

"Very much so," Georgia replied. "I've had a quick survey of the downstairs and am ready for a look upstairs if you don't mind."

"Help yourself," Lena said. "I'm going to find some breakfast before we meet and talk. There has to be something to eat in this place."

Alex escorted Georgia upstairs for a tour of the house, which included Lena's bedroom and a quick perusal of Hal's broken bed. "It takes a lot to do that," Georgia said. "That Hal, he's dangerous isn't he?"

"Yeah," Alex replied. "I don't think Tom and I knew how dangerous he could be until we saw it for ourselves. I reckon if Lena can't help him get over the blood, we'll have to stake him."

Georgia was taken aback by Alex's matter-of-fact tone and manner. She and Bill had never dealt with supernatural beings other than fellow Seraphin Nepos and the occasional ghost. She felt like she had entered a bizarre sub-world that she had formerly assiduously avoided, and she wasn't entirely happy about it.

They completed the tour to find Lena and Hal eating breakfast. They had somehow managed to work together to fix the meal for them both. Alex got Lena's briefcase from the Audi and the group shifted from the kitchen to the dining table so Lena could spread out the original blueprints and other documents of previous structural and design changes the house had undergone.

Once she got Georgia settled, Lena and Hal returned to the kitchen to do the washing up. As she watched him don his marigolds Lena knew that her presence had finally settled him down and she decided not to tie his hands together again after they had finished. She also allowed him to direct their activities, as this was clearly his domain and their breakfast preparations had gone much more smoothly once she had given him the command position.

Lena had spent a good part of her life battling the slave trade. The notion that she could act like a slave owner and treat anyone, even a vampire, like a slave turned her stomach. She was certain that Hal was dangerous and needed to be contained, and in truth there were much more ruthless ways to do it than the one she had chosen. Once again Lena found herself walking the thin line between appropriate caution and vindictive power.

They spent the rest of the morning planning and in the end Lena was ready to move ahead with several projects immediately. First priority for Georgia's crew would be to turn the small bedroom next to Lena's into a bathroom. Georgia recommended an en suite but Lena declined in favor of her agreement with Hal that he would also have access to it. The decision was in some ways symbolic of her hope that they could eventually come to terms with co-habitation.

Georgia's crew would also construct a laundry alcove on the first floor next to the kitchen and add a dishwasher in the kitchen itself. She thought it best to consider all plumbing-related projects at once, thereby streamlining the processes involved.

Second priority was a dance studio, and for that project Georgia recommended two small rooms on the back side of the house, at the other end of the main hallway from Hal and Lena's rooms. A study of the original house plans showed that the two rooms had actually begun as one large room, so tearing out the dividing wall would pose no risk to the structural integrity of the house. Lena decided that the dance studio would be her project; after all, she couldn't just sit around and watch a vampire sip tea all day. She'd rather have him work alongside her and keep them both busy.

Before anything could happen the house needed to be emptied of some of the accumulated stuff that was stockpiled in empty rooms and unused corners. Hal recommended Cancer Research Wales as a good place to send donations; it was a favorite of Tom's, as apparently he bought most of his clothes from the organization's shops. Georgia would arrange for a crew and trucks to do a haul-away tomorrow, giving the housemates the night to look things over and decide what, if anything, they wanted to keep from the stockpile.

Lena approved the plan with only one stipulation regarding crews coming and going at Honolulu Heights. "I want as many supernaturals on the job as possible, for two reasons," she told Georgia. "It will be easier for Hal to be around as few humans as possible, and I want Alex to be recognized and respected as a member of this household." At the ghost's surprised look, she continued. "This is your home, Alex. You have a say in what happens here. The work crews need to be able to communicate with you until you learn to make yourself visible to humans in general."

"Can I do that?" Alex was taken aback by the thought. As far as she knew, it was impossible.

"Of course you can," Lena replied. "I've known ghosts who became completely tangible to the human world. It just takes practice and patience to build up your strength."

"Really? How come nobody told me that?" she looked pointedly at Hal.

"I've never met a ghost who could become tangible," he replied. "I've met a few who could make themselves barely visible or audible to humans for a limited time, but it takes a great deal of effort."

They all looked to Lena for an explanation.

"Look Alex, you can do you decide to do at this point. Your mortal parts are gone and your supernatural parts aren't limited by a physical body." Lena tried to explain the concept of faith, and belief in oneself, as best she could. "Look at me. Do I look like a supernatural demon slayer with a 12-foot wingspan? Do I appear to be covered in armor and weapons? No. But when I need those things, they are all there for me. I simply believe that they are, and they appear. I have faith in those parts of myself that are immortal, or supernatural, or spiritual. They exist. I believe in them and they exist."

"I guess it makes sense in a way," Hal said. "Annie was very powerful when she forgot herself and did what she believed she had to do." He turned to Georgia. "Annie was a ghost of our acquaintance and the former matriarch of our household. She blew up the vampire Old Ones and prevented their war against humanity."

Georgia spun her head to stare, aghast, at Lena for confirmation of Hal's seemingly ludicrous statement.

"It's true, Georgia," Lena replied. "There's a lot about our world that most Seraphin Nepos don't know."

Georgia swallowed heavily. "I think I'd prefer to keep it that way, if you don't mind," she said shakily. Just then there was a knock at the door. "Bill!" Georgia called his name with obvious relief.

"I'll get it." Alex popped over to the door and brought in Bill Harriman, who was finished with his survey of the hotel and was ready to pick up his wife and return to London. Lena met him with a handshake and introduced Hal, who once again handled an awkward situation with aplomb. He asked Harriman a few excellent questions about the state of things at the Barry Grand and generally gave the impression that he was in charge of the household and hotel, even while being kept on leash like an animal. Lena once again noted Hal's behavior as evidence of both his strength of character and his potential for danger.

After the Harrimans departed the afternoon was spent in what could almost be considered quiet domesticity. They cleaned up the broken bed and moved Hal's bed from his room next door into their shared room; they cleaned the kitchen and bathroom; they did a kitchen inventory and grocery list for Tom; they began the process of deciding what to remove from the house.

Alex worked alongside Lena and Hal throughout the day, and she was happier than Hal had seen her since before her death. He supposed it was because she had been able to take part in the business of the day and had hopes of meeting other people who could communicate with her. Hal had to give Lena credit—she was being surprisingly considerate of Alex, and of him too, all things considered. She had left his hands untied all afternoon and had worked to maintain the delicate balance between effective proximity and too close for comfort in terms of personal space.

Hal could feel Lena's calming, stabilizing effect on him increase as the day wore on. His bloodlust diminished to the point that he could almost relax when humans walked past the house. He realized that Lena was ever watchful of him, and at first he believed she was waiting for his next assault or escape attempt, but he became aware that she was simply making sure he was okay.

She had first asked him "What do you need?" while they were preparing breakfast; she asked it repeatedly during the day, quietly, when she saw him hesitate or look concerned or confused.

At first Hal had responded, "Not a thing, thank you," thinking that Lena was being polite or cautious. Eventually it occurred to him that 'polite' and 'cautious' were not character traits that anyone with any sense would attribute to her. The next time she asked the question, he gave an honest response.

"I need to stay away from windows on the front of the house," he said. "For now, at least."

"Of course. Take the lead if you need to. I'll follow." And she did.

They had tea ready when Tom got home from work full of stories about that Mr. Harriman bloke and their plans for the hotel. They caught up on the Harrimans and the renovation plans during a meal that Hal enjoyed immensely, even though it was simple fare. With his bloodlust diminished he was able to appreciate the taste of food for the first time in centuries, and with that new knowledge in mind he added some items to the grocery list. A man with his refined tastes could only tolerate so many bacon sarnies.

Lena handed Tom the grocery list and a fistful of money to pay for it, telling him to pick up whatever he wanted that they may have forgotten to put on the list. Alex accompanied Tom so she could rent-a-ghost around the store and make things disappear from shelves and reappear in their shopping cart.

They had been gone about five minutes when the two technicians from O2 appeared to install business-grade internet service in Honolulu Heights. Lena met them at the door and quickly pointed out the current service line that she wanted replaced as part of the installation. While she spoke to them Hal stood just around the corner near the coat rack and tried to ignore the double tattoo of their heartbeats.

When the technicians had left the doorway to begin the job Lena explained to Hal what was happening and that it would involve at least one of them entering the house for a brief period. She and Hal decided that the window facing the street was less of a challenge than the presence of the workmen at the back of the house, so they sat on the sofa near the front of the house during the installation.

She had pulled a book off the shelf and they took turns reading passages from Sir Walter Scott's Kenilworth. They stopped occasionally to chuckle at its historical inaccuracies. When the technician came inside to set up the service hub on a small table in the corner of the dining room, she removed the bola from Hal and instead slid her arm through the crook of his elbow to keep them linked until the technician left. They both recognized that her touch calmed him; he didn't realize that she was working to block the tentacles of his curse, which continuously tried to dig into her with prolonged contact.

When it was over and the technicians were gone Hal looked at Lena. "Thank you. For being considerate enough of my feelings not to parade me in front of strangers like a…" he swallowed, unable to find any word that he was willing to speak aloud.

"It saved us both some strange looks," she replied lightly as she placed the bola loosely around his neck. At his frown she explained, "I don't trust you yet, Pet. Besides, I use it as a guide, to know how far away from you I can be without causing trouble."

He sighed but didn't protest. Her explanation made sense. He continued his turn at reading, as she hadn't suggested any other course of action. For Hal it was a pleasant distraction; for Lena it was a gentle reminder of times past, when they had worked together to teach him the Slavic language of the region. He had barely spoken it when they met and some of the first words he had asked her about were insults he had been called. He had been a quick study.

They were still reading when Tom and Alex came home loaded down with groceries. Tom had taken clear advantage of Lena's offer to pick up whatever he wanted, but Hal's requests had also been met. It took some doing to get everything stored away but Hal's organizational skills were up to the challenge and eventually the kitchen was tidy again.


	11. Chapter 11 Partnership

Lena was slicing an assortment of cheeses onto a wooden cheese board and Hal was washing grapes in preparation for a late evening snack when there was a knock at the front door. Alex popped over immediately and peeked through the blinds. "It's Rook!"

"Oh yeah," Tom said to Lena through his jam sandwich. "Mr. Rook wants to meet you."

"He's the head of the Department of Domestic Defense," Hal explained further.

"Ah, the Men in Grey," Lena nodded her awareness of the DoDD and added. "Do you know him?"

"We're acquainted," Hal said with an undertone to his voice that Lena noted. She would ask him more about their acquaintance later. Tom was already opening the door for the man, so Lena called the bola off Hal with a warning look. He nodded in thanks as he placed the grapes in a bowl and joined her in carrying their food to the dining table, where he immediately took charge of introductions.

"Mr. Rook, it's a bit late for an unannounced social call, don't you think? Never mind, I'm sure you have good reason for your visit." Hal met the slender, blue-eyed man at the bar and ushered him back into the dining area where Lena stood waiting. "Allow me to introduce you to Lena Perennis, our new landlady and housemate, and the Seraphin Nepos who defeated Captain Hatch."

Rook had begun to extend his hand for a cordial handshake, but when he heard the last bit of Hal's introduction his hand, and the rest of him, froze momentarily. His eyes began to glow with excitement and a smile spread across his usually serious face.

Lena caught his hand and shook it, jolting him from his momentary stupor. "Mr. Rook. You look like you've had a long day. May we offer you some tea?"

"That would be most appreciated," the MiG replied, "and please, call me Dominic."

"Very well Dominic. If you'll excuse us?" with that Lena and Hal returned to the kitchen to fix a pot of tea and gather plates and napkins. Dominic Rook watched them closely through the pass-through window between dining room and kitchen, a puzzled look on his face as he witnessed yet another example of two sworn enemies working together. Lena noticed his scrutiny.

"I think we should expect that look from most people who know what we are," Hal said, apparently noticing Rook as well. "Did I see apples among the quantity of questionable food items that Tom purchased? I wouldn't mind apple slices and water biscuits if we have them."

"We've got both," Lena replied as she pulled a couple of apples from the fridge. She washed and sliced them and dropped them into a bowl; Hal wasn't coming near a knife for some time, as far as she was concerned. Hal found the box of water biscuits and insisted on plating them before carrying them into the dining room. Lena would happily have eaten them from the box. Alex rent-a-ghosted things to the table, primarily so she could make Rook jump when they magically appeared near him.

When they were all seated Hal broached the subject of Rook's late visit again. "So Rook, why exactly are you here?"

Rook set down his tea and looked at Hal. "I've come with a warning," he said. "We have news that Hetty is planning your assassination."

Rook had barely finished his sentence when the world shifted around him and he found himself terrified by something he had never encountered in all of his dealings with the supernatural. The air brightened and seemed to fizz; the ground trembled; he was thrown into the shadow of great grey wings that unfurled and wrapped protectively around the table and its occupants, their wingtips nearly brushing his shoulders. He saw Tom's hair stand up and felt his own doing the same as a surge of energy flooded the room. He quickly lowered his gaze to the table, afraid to look across it at the creature who had just moments before handed him his tea.

He saw Lena's hands slam onto the table with a weight that caused it to groan as she rose to her feet and leaned across it toward him.

"Where is she?" Lena growled out her words through gritted teeth.

When he dared to raise his eyes Rook found himself caught by eyes hard and bright as diamonds that fixed on him, unblinking, predatorily. Her hair stood out from her head like a mane; a shadow of cold grey armor covered her body, waiting to be called into existence. She lowered her head and braced herself as if preparing to leap across the table at him, and Dominic Rook realized that for the first time in his adult life he was facing a creature against which he had no defense. He also realized that he may have allowed a miniscule bit of urine to escape his body at an inappropriate time.

Hal placed a hand over Lena's on the table and drew her attention to him. He winced as he looked into the white fire of her eyes and said as lightly and as casually as he could, "You're scaring our guest."

She blinked, closed her eyes again and took a breath, and forced herself to calm down. She stood up from the table and looked at Rook with eyes that were once again human; she spoke to him in a voice that was once again human.

"Is she an imminent threat?"

Rook carefully shook his head. "We don't believe so."

Lena furled her wings and sat down as the atmosphere in the room returned to normal. "Tell me everything you know," she demanded quietly.

Dominic Rook never told everything he knew—it was a matter of pride for him both personally and professionally. Knowledge is power, and knowledge kept to oneself gives one a great deal of power when needed. He had been keeping secrets since childhood. Nobody knew how to keep a secret better than he.

Rook looked into Lena's cool grey eyes and realized that she knew he was a secret-keeper. He also realized that she could remove every secret from him in whatever manner she found most fitting, and that nothing on earth could stop her. Rook picked up his tea cup in a shaking hand and took a long drink. He set it down and took a breath. He told Lena everything he knew.

By the time Rook had completed his narrative and answered Lena's questions the conservative amount of urine that he had inadvertently let slip from his body had dried up and he felt able to get up from the table and say his good-byes without being self-conscious about it. He expected that the werewolf and vampire, with their heightened senses, may have caught the scent of his rather embarrassing accident, but they were considerate enough not to mention it. In fact, Rook wondered if Tom hadn't had a similar problem—he had certainly looked terrified enough when the Seraphin Nepos had manifested.

Dominic Rook was a cautious man; he credited his longevity to the fact that he didn't rush headlong into danger but rather prepared himself for every known eventuality before proceeding. He had, therefore, delved into the archive and studied everything he could find referencing Seraphin Nepos. Nowhere in the record had he found anything to suggest that a Seraphin Nepos would threaten an innocent human, although the monsters who were their dark twins were happy to do so. While he knew better than to consider himself 'innocent,' in this situation he was doing no wrong and was in fact being helpful to the Seraphin Nepos by warning her of a potential danger. With that in mind, he was completely unprepared for her reaction, which he considered as directly threatening to him. It was something to ponder, once he was safely away from Honolulu Heights.

Hal, Lena, and Alex gathered up the dishes while Tom saw Rook to the door. They barely noticed the brief conversation the two men had, although Tom was frowning thoughtfully as he entered the kitchen after seeing Rook out. Alex had something else on her mind and was quick to speak up as soon as she knew the housemates were alone.

She looked at Lena. "Why'd you get all…?" she waved her hands around to signify Lena's sudden manifestation. "I thought you'd be glad to hear that someone was comin' for Hal. Don't you want him dead? And what's with the eyes and stuff? You didn't look like that when you were fighting Hatch."

Hal had been thinking much the same thing. "Yes, why did you suddenly get so protective? Surely it was a bit of an overreaction on your part, wasn't it? Don't tell me that you care what happens to me."

"Not just Hal, to all of us," Tom added. "You wrapped us all up, except Mr. Rook. Ya nearly scared him to death, I reckon." He muttered to himself, "Scared me too, like."

"Hetty is Lucifer's bitch," Lena said. "When she finally gets dusted she has a throne in hell waiting for her. You can't overestimate how dangerous she is."

"She is a treacherous, cunning little minx," Hal said. "But surely she isn't more of a threat than Hatch?"

"All right, fine, I jumped the gun on the wings and armor thing. It was a reflex. I go balls to the wall until I know what I'm facing." Lena looked at her new housemates in disgust. "Oh and fuck you all for not appreciating the fact that I was protecting my new home from a dangerous threat."

Tom looked guilty at her comments, but Alex was unaffected and persevered with her questions. "But Rook said she was after Hal, not the rest of us. Why do you care?"

"Did Hal blow up the Old Ones all by himself? Do you really think Hetty wouldn't destroy every one of you if she had a chance?"

"So it isn't just me you care about," Hal answered, sarcasm thickening in his voice. "And here I thought we had something special, my lady."

You don't get it yet, do you?" Lena looked at them all before focusing on Hal. "I'm not allowed to harm you or to cause harm to come to you through a third party. That means I can't ask someone else to kill you, I can't pay someone else to kill you, and I can't stand aside and let someone else kill you. If I know of a threat against you, I have to protect you." She called out the bola, still tied in a slip knot on one end.

"Not this again," Hal muttered as she opened the loop. Instead of dropping the loop over his head, Lena put it over her own and handed him the other end. He took it, still puzzled over what she was saying.

"I'm as bound to you as you are to me, Pet," she said simply. "No matter how much I hate it, I'm honor-bound to keep you alive."

Hal looked at the end of the bola in his hand for a moment before dropping it. "There is one difference, my lady. You can remove your noose whenever you choose."

"The one you can see, yes. The one that truly keeps me here is stronger than this rope can ever be." She sighed and put the bola away. "I'm done with the leash, Pet. It's too tedious to deal with any more."

Tom spoke up. "Sorted, then, eh? Sorry if I was rude to ya Lena, you scared me and all, but I'm glad you're watching out for Hetty. Right, I'm first for the shower. Got an early start tomorrow." He finished his sentence as he headed up the stairs, happy to take Lena at her word that she would protect Hal. Tom didn't really understand what all she said, but he'd think about it in the shower, that and what Mr. Rook had asked him about.

Alex shrugged. "Telly for me, then," she said as she pushed through the kitchen doors toward the front room and television.

Hal and Lena looked around the suddenly empty kitchen for a moment, then moved together to finish the cleanup. Tom was done in the bathroom by the time they got upstairs, so they collected clean nightclothes and took their turn. Lena sat on the floor in front of the door and read her Kindle while Hal did his thing. When he was dried and dressed in his shorts she got up and sealed the bathroom door as she had done the conference room door in the television studio. She also sealed the window, effectively blocking Hal from leaving the room.

Hal took her place on the floor and leaned against the door with Kenilworth, which he had decided to finish reading. He intended to watch her undress and shower, of course, especially now that he knew what her body looked and felt like. The thought of her skin against his stirred his blood and darkened the curse that hung over him.

"Hal, whatever you're thinking is making the curse stronger," Lena said, watching him closely. "Can you tell?"

"Yes I can," he replied, meeting her look. "I was thinking that I'd like to help you out of your clothes."

"For fuck's sake, man, do you ever give up? Thinking that is a waste of time and it makes the curse stronger! Do I need to tie you up again? Blindfold you? What?"

Hal heard Lena's anger and frustration, which were expected, but he also caught an undercurrent of sadness in her voice. It moved him more than it should have, considering who he was, and he responded to it. "You are right, of course. Blood and sex are closely linked for vampires, especially for me. Although I think the no peeking rule is ridiculous for two adults, I can see that you have good reason for it."

With that, he turned his back to her and pretended to focus on his book. In fact he was pondering her word choice. She had called him 'man,' not a vampire, not a pet, not a beast. For reasons he didn't fully understand, Hal was deeply pleased by that.

Lena kept her senses tuned into him as she undressed and showered, but as far as she could tell he didn't so much as turn his head. When she was dressed in sleep shorts and a black t-shirt with the slogan "Keep Calm and Love Bacon" on the front, Lena gave Hal a nudge with her foot. He stood as gracefully as always and stretched just a bit before moving aside to let her unseal the door. She opened the door and stepped back to let him lead to the bedroom. Once there she sealed the bedroom door and window and turned on the table lamp by her her bed before turning off the overhead light.

"I'm going to finish this chapter before turning out the light, if you don't mind," she said as she got into bed with her Kindle.

"I'm happy to do the same," Hal replied as turned on the lamp by his bed. He stretched out and went back to his reading, but he glanced over at her from time to time. Hal was waiting for Lena to bring the bola over. Surely she would tie him to his bed for the night. She couldn't possibly sleep in the same room with a free-roaming vampire. Could she? Especially not him. He had assaulted her twice, after all, and had already broken their agreement to stop making sexual advances with his suggestion in the bathroom.

"Good night, Hal." Lena closed her Kindle, turned off her lamp, and slid down into her bed, turning her back to him once again.

He froze for a second. Should he remind her of the bola? Was she so tired that she forgot?

"Good night," he replied. "Sleep well."

"I hope you do the same. I won't leave you this time, you have my word."

Hal sat staring at his book, unable to focus on the words on the page. In truth, he would have to reread every page he had gotten through since coming to the bedroom. He stayed there quietly and listened to her even breathing and steady heartbeat in the next bed. He could tell that she had quickly fallen asleep, but a part of him couldn't believe it was true.

He was an experienced killer with a reputation that she knew was based on fact. She had read his dossier, so she knew what he was capable of. And she was just a few feet away, sound asleep, making little purring noises in her throat that human ears wouldn't detect, and that he found adorable.

He decided that Lena wasn't stupid enough to trust him, so she must believe that she could handle whatever surprise attack he might attempt. Her action meant that she was, quite simply, fearless. He considered her manifestation of power from earlier that night and decided that she had every right to be fearless. Hal was oddly comforted by the knowledge that this crazy, scary, foul-mouthed creature was staying close to him at night. He turned out his lamp and went to sleep.

# # #

Lena was awakened by a quiet knock on the door. She immediately opened it, aware that Tom was on the other side.

"Good morning, Tom."

"Mornin' Lena, sorry to bother you, like, but I need to talk to you before I go to work." Tom spoke softly, his discomfort at seeing her in her nightclothes made apparent by his lack of eye contact.

"I'm awake." Hal spoke from the interior of the room and Lena heard him moving to sit up in his bed. She motioned for Tom to come on in, returned to her own bed, and perched on it comfortably.

"What's up, house meeting?" Alex popped her head in and, seeing her housemates assembled, came on in and plunked down on Lena's bed.

Tom stood in the middle of the floor and announced, "Mr. Rook has two new werewolves at the Archive and he wants me to meet them before their first full moon." He saw the startled looks on his friends' faces but plowed ahead. "I was thinkin' maybe we could have them come to dinner tonight, if Lena would promise not to scare 'em, like." He flapped his hands in vaguely birdlike fashion. "Mr. Rook could bring them." He finally stopped talking when he had made his full proposal.

"Tom," Hal asked carefully, "did Rook tell you how he came to acquire the two werewolves?"

"He said they was a family, on holiday, camping rough up at one of the lakes," Tom pointed in a sort-of northerly direction. "A werewolf attacked and killed the parents, scratched the kids. He said they was a girl, 16, and a boy, 14. Mr. Rook said he got them rooms at the Archive instead of sending them to Social Services 'cause he had to know if they was werewolves."

"Did Dominic tell you why he wanted you to meet the new werewolves?" Lena was the only one of the household who used Rook's first name, because she was the only one he had given permission to do so.

"He wants me to tell them what it's like, having the wolf. To help them understand that it'll be okay, they can get through it. He said I could explain it." Tom looked slightly worried. He wasn't known for his powers of exposition.

"You know, Tom, this could be a good thing," Alex said. "They're probably scared shitless right now, and spending time with Rook's bloody crew isn't helping them. They need to see that being a werewolf isn't the end of the world. I say let 'em come on over."

"Right, but I'll be at work until after 6 tonight, so I won't be home to cook nothing. And there's people coming and going here today so the house will be a right mess, or at least enough of one to set Hal off on a cleaning spell. And we don't have a table big enough for that many people." Tom was presenting the arguments against his proposal so well that nobody else needed to say anything.

Lena spoke first. "Dinner we can work on together, and a table big enough to seat seven can be my concern. I'll handle it."

"And I'm not nearly as likely to be set off by a little mess as other me, so you needn't fear that," Hal added.

"Oh, I thought you was good Hal, sort of," Tom said. "You been acting alright."

"I told you, Tom, your friend is…gone." Hal didn't use the word 'dead' this time. The pain on Tom's face in anticipation of hearing it again kept him from it. "Lena's presence hasn't turned me into somebody else, it's just…turned down the volume, shall we say, on some of the more challenging aspects of my personality."

"I didn't think you were uptight enough to be good Hal," Alex said. "He'd be wearing a shirt buttoned up to his chin and have his bed made by now." Her eyes skimmed over Hal's finely-muscled torso as she spoke. He was still wearing only the shorts he had slept in.

"Quite. He is unable to relax, whereas I am quite happy to do so, especially without the nagging bloodlust to bother me," Hal smiled at Lena as he answered Alex. It was the first time he admitted aloud that he appreciated her proximity. It was amazing what a good night's sleep could do for his attitude.

"We'll have the extra people cleared out and things in order by the time you get home, Tom. Why don't you call Dominic and confirm dinner for, say, 7 o'clock?" Lena watched Tom's face as she spoke. Seeing a slight frown forming again, she added. "7:30? You set the time and let us know, okay?"

With the agreement made, Tom left for work and Alex left the room in order to allow Hal and Lena to get dressed for the day. They moved through their morning routine while Lena went over the details of who would be in the house and what she expected to have happen, with Alex joining the conversation over breakfast.

There would be three trucks and crews to haul away everything from the three unused rooms that were slated for renovation, as well as a few items from the attic and general living area. Tom wasn't sure he wanted the attic touched, but Hal encouraged him to at least have the drum set removed, as Alex had mentioned learning to play the drums and nobody needed to hear that. Lena intended to add their current dining table and chairs to the haul-away list.

A waste disposal company would be setting a large commercial-grade waste bin against the back of the house, preferably under the windows of the two rooms that would become Lena's dance studio. All construction refuse would be thrown in the waste bin, although Tom requested that any lumber which might come in handy later be left out for him to have a look at.

Lena was expecting her people to come down from London in the early afternoon, a group that included an IT expert to finish setting up the encryption-secured computer network and a crew to deliver her personal belongings, which she would store in the attic until she had time to unpack.

Finally, Lena was going to buy a new dining set capable of seating at least eight, and would have it delivered around 5 o'clock.

As Hal listened to the plans for the day he began to worry about the number of people who would be in the house with him. True, Lena's proximity was working to mute his bloodlust, but all of those humans traipsing in and out, up and down…his mouth began to water just a little bit at the thought.

Lena noticed the curse darkening around Hal and put her hand on his arm to bring his attention back to her. "Remember Hal, I've given specific instructions that anyone who enters the house must be non-human, at least for the time being. Humans may be working outside the house, but I think we can handle that, don't you?"

Once again Hal was reminded of Lena's thoughtfulness, although he suspected it had more to do with protecting humanity than making him comfortable. He nodded his agreement. They could handle that.

"How'd you manage to do that?" Alex asked.

"Well, the IT tech is a werewolf, she's catching a ride with the Seraphin Nepos who's in charge of my personal belongings, and he knows to bring only non-humans into the house. Bernard, an old friend, I trust him to take care of the details. The furniture haulers are Seraphin Nepos, oh, they're bringing ghosts with them to speed up the process, rent-a-ghosting you know. And the waste disposal company will receive payment online so there's no reason for the driver to enter the house." Lena frowned. "The dining set delivery is a new wrinkle, but we'll figure it out."

"Wait, they're bringing ghosts with them? Real ghosts? Here? Today?" Alex's voice went up in register and volume as she caught hold of the one tidbit of Lena's narrative that truly interested her.

"I have an 'Equal Right to Employment' policy."

"Which also explains the werewolf," Hal nodded approvingly. "No vampires in your employ?"

"No, I find them too unpredictable and murderous to be reliable employees," Lena spoke coolly, but her words were razor-sharp. Hal had to agree that she was right. He had learned from experience that even as an Old One, other vampires were difficult to manage.

"Any other supernaturals?" He decided it best to leave the challenges of vampire employees alone.

Lena willingly moved away from the topic as well. "Well, most of them have particular challenges that we have to sort out, but we do our best. We employ several incubi and succubi through our work-from-home arrangement. It's easy to do these days, thanks to modern technology."

Lena finished her coffee and turned to Hal. "So, what shall we do about dinner? Surely we can put together a meal from the stockpile of food that got hauled into the house last night?"

"Am I a chef now? I don't remember seeing that on my CV," he replied with a half-smile.

"We could just order pizza, I suppose. We are feeding teenagers," Lena said.

"Pizza isn't a meal that one invites people to share. Pizza is an act of desperation or exhaustion when actual food is for some reason beyond reach." Hal was under no circumstances willing to wrestle an oddly-shaped bread slice with assorted slippery toppings from a box onto a plate, let alone attempt to eat it. He may be a vampire, but he was no savage.

"Let's do a little menu planning then," Lena responded with her own half-smile. She figured the pizza line would get him. "I can call for delivery of any fresh food that we may need to get."

What am I going to do?" Alex felt left out by their couples' planning session.

"You are in charge of the haul-away crew, if you don't mind."

"Seriously? I'm in charge?"

"Why not? Everyone who comes in should be able to see you. You know what needs to be done. You're a competent woman, no reason for you not to be in charge." Lena gave Alex responsibility and a compliment with one deft stroke, leaving the ghost excited about her upcoming day. She disappeared into the living room to check out the front windows for the haul-away trucks, then popped upstairs with her laugh trailing behind her.


	12. Chapter 12 Companionship

Lena reviewed her game plan for the day: the addition of dinner needed to be carefully considered. She gave the dining set a thought and changed her mind about local delivery; she would call Bernard and ask if he had room on the truck coming from London. She put the phone on speaker and set it on the table so she could get another cup of coffee while it was ringing. Hal was already in the pantry considering their dinner options.

"Good morning Lena," Bernard's friendly voice always made her smile.

Bernard! Got a question for you. I need a dining table that seats eight or more, with matching chairs. Can you pick one up for me today?"

"Sure. Specifics?"

"I want something with leaves so it can seat from four upward comfortably. Solidly built, in case I get drunk and decide to dance on it one of these nights." She threw that in just to see the look on Hal's face, which was more calculating than shocked. He was obviously picturing it in his mind.

"I thought you'd given up drunken table dancing," Bernard answered calmly. "Didn't that episode in the saloon in Dodge City teach you anything?"

"That was 150 years ago! Don't you ever forget?"

"You wrecked the place, killed five people, put the entire crew of the Bar-W ranch out of commission for a week at least, so no, I don't think I'll forget that one any time soon."

"Vampires, Bernard. I killed five vampires. The rest was just a cover, you know that. And those boys at the Bar-W had it coming. Trying to grab my ass!" She gave Hal a glare as a reminder of what he could look forward to if he considered a similar course of action. He arched an eyebrow at her as he rejoined her at the kitchen table.

"Right, sorry, it was just self-defense." Bernard's voice carried an appropriate amount of dry sarcasm. Hal thought he might enjoy meeting Lena's old friend.

"Look, Bernard, no pedestal table, okay? Four solid legs. Nothing fancy or artsy in the design."

"Chairs? Cloth seats?" Bernard was getting down to brass tacks.

Lena shook her head as she and Hal exchanged glances, clearly remembering Rook's accident of the previous evening. "No. Wood seats. Leather, if they have water-resistant finish. Maple or oak, no dark wood, okay?"

"Got it. This may delay our start by a bit, but we should still be able to get there by mid-afternoon."

And with that the seating-for-eight problem was solved. Within an hour the dinner menu was also solved and the haul-away had begun. Hal spent the day close to Lena as she moved effortlessly through what appeared to be continual chaos and confusion, always with a smile and a kind word, occasionally with a joke or American colloquialism. She referred decisions to Alex whenever appropriate and made decisions herself in a quick, decisive manner.

In his 500 years as a vampire Hal had coerced, bullied, and threatened his way to the top of the heap and had proven himself to be a formidable member of the vampire elite. He had emulated the vampires whose power he wanted to achieve; he had excelled at devious machinations and brute force; he had no idea that other methods would work.

As he watched Lena, who to all appearances was a casually-dressed young homeowner with a fondness for silly t-shirts and ponytails, Hal Yorke saw what true power looked like. She never raised her voice except to laugh. She never criticized, she never demanded, she never threatened. And yet her wishes were instantly met, her suggestions immediately taken, her priorities universally accepted by the creatures who eagerly did her bidding.

He also realized that he was surrounded by creatures who were his natural enemies, with good reason, but who treated him with courtesy and respect. Certain that his species identity would be clear to most supernaturals who met him, Lena simply introduced him as her housemate, Mr. Hal Yorke, using the formal term of respect with each group that entered Honolulu Heights. In each case he added "Just call me Hal" with the charming smile and easy manner that had gotten him through many awkward situations. She gave him the opportunity to put everyone at ease and allowed him once again to take the command position.

Hal knew that he could easily have been bound and gagged and put on display as a prisoner, as Lena had threatened to do when she first arrived at Honolulu Heights. He had no way to stop her from doing to him exactly what she wanted, and if their places had been reversed he would absolutely have had her stripped naked and tied to a bed so he could parade his guests past her or allow them to sample her charms. She would have been his trophy and his victim and he would have laughed at her pleas for mercy or death.

Hal knew this about himself because he had done it countless times in the past, and she knew he had, and he knew that she knew. The only explanation he had for her generosity toward him was her own statement: _The devil doesn't own my soul and I'd like to keep it that way._ Lena was protecting herself by protecting him.

It occurred to Hal as they began dinner preparations that Lena had never suggested containing him in any manner during the course of the day. He knew that she had watched him constantly, gauged the color of the curse, and moved closer when it grew darker. Her ability to multitask was breathtaking at times, as was her resolve to keep him safe.

When it came to dinner the differences between their tastes came into sharp focus. Hal decided that their young dinner guests would appreciate comfort food after the shocks they had recently endured and had set out the menu accordingly: a good, old-fashioned steak and kidney pie, with mashed potatoes to sop up the gravy, and a bread and butter pudding for dessert.

Lena, on the other hand, was determined to add a green salad and some kind of fruit dish to the heavy menu. Their combined efforts required a call to a local butcher shop and a greengrocer, both of which were coerced into delivering their product to Honolulu Heights. Lena had to buy a decent quantity of fresh meat and fresh fruit and veg in order to get delivery service, so the meal became more expansive in its scope than either of them had intended.

It started off well as Lena cleaned and sliced ox kidneys for the first time in her life under Hal's skillful direction. He had seen Pearl do it countless times although he had never been allowed near raw meat or animal organs himself, a decision that Lena decided to enforce with him as well.

Alex walked into the kitchen just in time to watch a kidney squirt out of Lena's hand and arc gracefully toward the middle of the kitchen floor, only to be caught at the last second by Hal's heroic leap to its rescue. He landed on his back and slid about a foot, arm raised triumphantly, clutching the kidney, as Lena began to giggle, then laugh, then collapse on the floor, with tears rolling down her face. Alex was nearly as bad as she slumped against the wall laughing just as hard.

Hal tried to maintain his composure but their laughter was infectious and he joined them as he sat up gingerly holding his prize. It had been a reflex, the hunter leaping after its escaping prey, but he had to admit it must have looked hilarious, and it felt good to laugh. He held the kidney out to Lena, who was lying prone near him, gasping for breath as she calmed herself.

"Your kidney, my lady. Shall I remain here and watch for the next one?"

"Smartass! The next one will probably end up leaping through the pass-through window, so no, no reason for you to stay on the floor." She got up and quickly washed her hands before taking the ox kidney. Hal washed his hands as well, although the tiny amount of blood on them didn't bother him. Better to be safe.

"I can do that for you, Lena, I've done it loads of times," Alex said as she approached the counter.

"Would you? Wash your hands first," Lena pointed to the sink and Alex happily obliged, not thinking that she didn't actually have hands to get dirty or that water wouldn't actually affect her. She washed and dried her hands and had a knife to kidney before she realized what had just happened.

"What the…? Lena? Did I just put soap and water on my hands and dry my hands with a towel? How is that possible?"

"You forgot that you couldn't do it. I told you, your tangibility is up to you, Alex." Lena smiled at the young ghost, pleased that she had been able to make the point with her.

The steak and kidney pie filling was soon bubbling away on the stove as Lena got a fresh chicken in the oven to roast for tomorrow's eating. Next on her list was a fresh fruit pie—the greengrocer had peaches in stock as well as raspberries, two of her favorite fruits that she now prepared to bake together. Remembering that Hal would need a crust for his pie as well, she set out her ingredients and looked around for measuring cups.

"Whatcha need?" Alex asked from the sink, where she and Hal were working on raw vegetables and salad greens.

"I don't see any 1-cup measures."

"Oh yeah, we measure by weight."

"I measure by volume." Lena wasn't quite sure how to make the switch.

Hal spoke up. "I can tell you the amounts that Pearl used for her pie crust, but shouldn't you be heating your water and melting the lard? You're hardly ready to start anything."

"Why the hell would I heat water and melt lard? I've got ice water and chilled butter," Lena sensed a cultural rift forming.

"You can't make a decent pie crust like that," Hal looked over her setup. "You don't have any idea what you're doing, do you?"

"Fuck you, Fangboy, I've been making pies since before you were born."

"Easy, children, mind your manners," Alex interrupted with a chuckle in her voice. "My nana does the hot water crust, but I don't, so you can do it either way."

"Hmph." Hal clearly didn't believe that either of them knew what they were talking about, but he judged the look in Lena's eyes and decided to say no more. Before he returned to his job he flipped on the radio, an oldies station that Alex rolled her eyes at. She helped Lena measure the flour for two sets of crusts, the women working in silent partnership against the oblivious male in the room. Her part of the job done, Alex returned to the sink and the vegetables.

Soon Lena found herself rolling pie crust to the seductive rhythm of Bill Withers singing "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone." Her body swayed in time to the music as she sang along, harmonizing with the melody as she had so many times in the privacy of her own home.

She swung away from the counter, arms and torso and hips all flowing with soft eroticism as she danced to the fridge to get her bowl of prepared fruit filling. The song ended as she turned back toward the counter, bowl in hand, and saw Hal and Alex gawping at her from across the room.

"I dance," she said simply. "A lot."

"So I see," Hal responded calmly but Lena saw his darkened curse and knew that her dance had affected him. She thought about what that could mean for the freedom to dance that she found so essential to her own wellbeing as she assembled her peach-berry pie and slid it into the oven next to the chicken.

Hal joined her at the counter and they worked together to clear away one mess and get ready for another: he was determined that they would make a bread and butter pudding. Lena hadn't asked for his help but was glad to see him choose to be close to her, and she could see that his curse lightened immediately when he did so. Alex started cutting pieces of stale bread into triangles and trimming off the crusts. Lena was surprised that bread had a chance to get stale in a household that included Tom.

Hal's eyes lit up as Ben. E. King's "Stand by Me" came on the radio; it was one of his favorites. He had watched Leo and Pearl dance to it at least a hundred times, but had never done so himself. He loved to lead a beautiful woman around the dance floor; his other self therefore refused to consider it.

He took Lena's hand and twirled her into the middle of the room before drawing her into a simple dance around the kitchen, smiling at her obvious pleasure at having a partner. He was as graceful as she had imagined he would be and led her confidently in the small space, bringing them back to the counter in perfect timing with the song's end.

"My lady," he gave a short bow over her hand before releasing her and going into the pantry for the dates and sultanas that he wanted for the pudding. She began buttering a piece of bread with a smile, because dancing with Hal had caused the curse to diminish rather than increase. Her proximity made the difference, which was good to know.

Lena quickly became aware of Alex's stare.

"What?"

"The Hal I know wears an apron like a girl and won't touch raw food without sterile gloves and would never in a million years swing his hips on the dance floor," Alex declared as Hal returned to the table. "What have you done to him?"

Hal answered, "As I said this morning, Alex, other me was unable to relax and enjoy life. He's gone, I'm here. This is me, Alex, Hal Yorke the man, not just Hal Yorke the vampire." He gave Lena a grateful glance before continuing. "Get used to it."

# # #

By the time Tom got home from work the house was back in order, the new table was set for seven, and the kitchen was awash in completed or nearly completed items from the dinner menu, as well as several extra dishes that had been prepared along the way. Alex was placing the last piece of silverware on the table as he came through the door.

"Ta da!" She stepped back and threw out her arms to signify the multiple amazing things that she wanted Tom to notice and that she immediately began to tell him about as he made a beeline for the kitchen, lured by the smell of roasted meat.

Tom did his best to listen to her story of being seen and heard and being the boss because Lena made sure of it by bringing in supernaturals only, no humans, which was awesome! And there were ghosts, real ghosts doing real jobs for pay and everything, and one of them was sorta cute and gave her his address so maybe she'll just go check him out, because surely ghosts can shag other ghosts, yeh? Oh and she washed and dried her hands and it was real, she felt it, just like Lena said she could, and Hal and Lena danced and Hal cooked without an apron and look at all this stuff!

At some point during Alex's narrative Tom discovered the roast chicken cooling on the counter and clapped his hand firmly on its tender, juicy breast with a confidence he could never display with a woman, sadly, before pulling the thigh out of its joint and tearing off a huge bite. He leaned against the counter, ate the chicken and listened to Alex. She was happier than he had ever seen her, and he reckoned it was Lena's doing. Maybe it was a good thing, having her here.

Lena and Hal came downstairs in clean clothes, which reminded Tom that he needed to change before Mr. Rook and the werewolves got there. He tossed the chicken bones in the bin and looked thoughtfully at the other leg quarter.

"Might want to save room for dinner, Tom," Hal said with a chuckle. "That was supposed to be tomorrow's lunch."

"Right, sorry, couldn't help maself," Tom said as he stepped away from the chicken. "It all looks so good," he added, looking around the kitchen. "Reckon I'll go change out of ma work clothes."

Tom headed up the stairs with Alex trailing behind, eager to point out the empty rooms and the new laptop that was waiting for Tom in his own bedroom. Lena had made sure that each member of the household had one. Tom was happy to see the laptop but he really wanted to get out of his work clothes and into something more comfortable, so he began to undress in the hope that Alex would take the hint and leave.

Alex didn't take the hint until he was down to just his trousers. He paused with his hands on the button and zip.

"Alex."

"Wha—" She interrupted her own chatter to see what was so important and got a eyeful of shirtless Tom.

"Tom, look at you! You're really quite fit, you sexy thing." Alex meant to be teasing, but the meaning of her words caught her up as she realized that they were true. Tom was quite fit, and quite attractive in his own big-eyed, soulful way.

"Alex, this ain't a good time to be teasing me like that. The wolf's close, and he don't take things as easy as I do." Tom turned his gaze away from her as he spoke, staring toward the fireplace and his homage to family instead.

"Sorry Tom, I'll just…" She rent-a-ghosted to the dining room, leaving Tom alone.

Tom gave a sigh of relief at her departure. Something in Alex's eyes when she looked at him had reminded Tom of the wolf. She had looked hungry, sort of, and it wasn't the kind of hunger that made you want to eat chicken. He felt that hunger too, which was why he had turned away from her.

Tom shook his head. Alex was his friend, his mate, and a ghost besides. No reason to let his mind wander, no matter what the wolf said. But as he changed clothes, one sentence stuck in his mind: _I felt it Tom, I really felt it!_ She had only been talking about water and soap and a towel, but if those things could be real for Alex, what else might she be able to feel?

# # #

Lena and Hal discussed the possibility of Dominic Rook becoming a tasty Hal snack if he spent too much time in the house, but Hal assured her that the MiG held no interest for him. Something in his scent led Hal to believe that drinking his blood would only lead to a bad case of indigestion. The man's blood was completely unappealing, and Hal wondered if he put something in his tea to guarantee it.

Lena answered the exterior door when Rook knocked, with Hal at the interior door to show their guests into the house. Hal and Lena both recognized the teenagers as werewolves and exchanged a quick, sad look before following them into the living room.

"Your timing is impeccable, Dominic. Dinner is nearly ready." Lena said. "Please excuse the mess; we are beginning a renovation."

Rook didn't notice any mess, but he did see that a few small tables and chairs were missing. He turned to introduce his charges as Tom ran downstairs, leaping over the last four treads and striding toward them in a manner that would have been frightening if it weren't for his huge smile and open manner. He walked up to the two teenagers, hand extended first to the boy, then the girl. They looked very much alike, brown-haired and brown-eyed, with regular features. Their scars weren't visible.

"Tom McNair, pleased to meetcha."

"Ben Riley, my sister Beth," the boy replied.

"Right then. Ben and Beth." Tom stopped there, smiling at them both in what he hoped was an encouraging manner. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to introduce his housemates, Hal stepped into the gap.

"Ben, Beth, my name is Hal Yorke and this is Lena Perennis. Welcome to our home." He smiled disarmingly and Lena shook their hands.

The swinging doors to the kitchen opened as Alex came through them, clueing Rook as to her whereabouts. The Rileys watched her approach, ending Rook's speculation as to their species. They were werewolves.

"Hiya," she said as she joined the group.

"And this is Alex Millar, the fourth member of our family." Lena smiled as she added, "Alex is a ghost, so Dominic can't see or hear her. You may need to interpret for him from time to time."

The Rileys were taken aback at the notion that Rook was unable to do something. They had begun to think of him as nearly omnipotent and he hadn't corrected them.

"We don't believe in ghosts," Beth said. "Well, we didn't. I guess we believe in pretty much anything now."

"I know what you mean," Alex replied. "I didn't believe in ghosts either until I became one, and I didn't believe in vampires until one killed me. After that, werewolves were easy. And demons, and all the other stuff."

"Wait, vampires?" Ben spoke up. "They're real too?"

"Yeah, Hal's a vampire. He didn't kill me, though, he just drank my blood. His friend killed me, but it's okay, he's dead, long story, took forever to get him out of the carpet." Alex realized that she had dug herself a deep hole and shut up before making it worse.

Hal picked up the story with a wicked glint in his eye. "Don't blame me for not killing you Alex, I was planning on it but you ended our date early. As for Cutler, I think we got the last bits of him up when we shampooed the rugs last month."

"Yeah, him and those other blokes, Fergus and his gang what tried to kill Baby Eve," Tom added.

Seeing the increasingly alarmed looks on the Rileys' faces, Lena put the conversation to rest. "This house has seen a lot of turmoil, but there's no need to frighten everyone who sets foot through the door, is there?" She smiled at their guests. "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry and dinner is ready. Shall we?"

Alex and Tom hurried to the kitchen to bring out the food while Lena and Hal took care of the drinks. Dominic Rook placed himself in the center of one long side of the rectangular table, with Ben and Beth on either side of him. He took his role as their guardian seriously. Tom went to the foot of the table and Hal assumed that Lena would place herself at the head, but she subtly directed him there instead. She sat herself around the corner from him on the other long side, with Alex next to her.

"Let me know if there's something you want to taste," Lena told Alex as she served herself and passed the dishes on. They were eating family-style.

"You're not taking any food," Ben said, observing Alex's empty plate and glass.

"Ghosts can't eat or drink, or change clothes for that matter, which is why I'm constantly overdressed," Alex explained. "I wore this for my hot date with Hal the night I died. Now I'm stuck in it."

"I think you look very nice, Alex," Tom said.

"So do I," Lena said. "That dress is the perfect color for your complexion."

"Cheers guys," Alex replied. "Lena, did you mean what you said about me tasting stuff? I tried it with Tom, but I got a sense of the wolf and it threw me."

"Of course, just let me know what you want." Lena was more than willing to help her friend, and she was an old hand at working with ghosts. Alex put her hand on the back of Lena's head and nodded toward the steak and kidney pie on Lena's plate, forgetting her manners in her eagerness to taste again.

Lena passed the bowl of roasted vegetables on to Hal and took a bite of the pie. She got a bit of the crust as well as meat, onion, and gravy and put it in her mouth carefully, placed it on her tongue, and concentrated on the flavors. It was rich, savory, perfectly seasoned, and Alex moaned softly with pleasure as she tasted it.

"Aw, yes, sweet ass! I've missed that so much!"

Hal couldn't help chuckling as he said, "Language, Alex, we have guests."

"Sorry, but this is really good, Hal. You should try it." Alex realized that nobody else was eating yet and quickly reached for the next dish that Tom had waiting for her. "And I'm sure you will, as soon as we're ready to start eating."

With the ice broken the atmosphere at the table lightened and the meal proceeded at a leisurely pace. The housemates caught up on Tom's day at the hotel, answered questions from the Rileys and Rook, and allowed their guests to become comfortable with them as a whole. Hal took his place at the head of the table as an indication that he was to serve as host and he did so easily, making sure to spotlight Tom as often as possible. Ben and Beth clung to every scrap of information they could get about the young werewolf; their fear of what they were facing was palpable at times.

Alex mentioned the werewolf computer lady as another role model for the young people at the table, and Tom told them a bit about Allison, who was doing well in college. Finally, when dessert was finished, the Rileys opened up about the wolf attack, their parents' deaths, and their own fears about what they had become.

At that point Lena motioned for Hal and Alex to join her in clearing the table so Tom could have time with the young werewolves, as she believed that they would be more honest with just him and Dominic present. They stayed in the kitchen to do the washing up and put away the remaining food, what little there was.

"Three werewolves approaching the full moon can seriously pack away the food," Lena commented. "It's a good thing we weren't planning on leftovers."

"I've never seen anything like it," Hal said. "It must be the combination of teenager and werewolf. I've fed a half-dozen fully grown wolves for a day on what those three ate in one meal." His mouth snapped shut as he realized what he had just said.

"I guess you would have to keep your wolves well-fed so they would perform well in the cage," Lena replied, "especially the ones you planned to win money on." She paused with a frown. "I'm not sure the Rileys need to know about the animosity between your species just yet. They have enough to worry about for now."

At first Hal thought she was being sarcastic, but he realized that Lena was simply mirroring his own tone of voice as she accepted what should be a horror as ordinary, because in his life it was ordinary. Her second statement was a serious comment, and one that he agreed with.

"They will need to know at some point, in order to protect themselves, but you're right. We needn't rush it."

Tom saw what his friends were doing and was grateful. He never really talked about the wolf; it was such a part of him that it seemed too private to talk about in detail, like earwax and gas and the lint that he cleaned from his navel. He knew that Ben and Beth needed to learn everything they could about the wolf, so he spoke to them the way McNair used to talk to him. Tom told them clearly and simply what to expect with their transformations and how best to handle the recovery from it the following day.

There was no theory of evil or fate or religion in Tom's advice, no pity or regret in his manner. He was straightforward, practical, down-to-earth, and honest. After weeks of nebulous worries and unanswered questions, Beth and Ben needed Tom McNair desperately. Rook had been right to ask for his help.

When it looked like conversation at the table was winding down the housemates returned to the dining room with tea. Lena had a couple of questions for Dominic that she needed to have answered before he left with Beth and Ben.

"I know that you will keep Beth and Ben safe during their transformation Dominic," she began, "but I'd like to know what your long-term plans are for them."

Rook sighed into his tea. "The truth is, I have no long-term plans. I wanted to first make certain that they are both werewolves, which clearly they are, as they can see Miss Millar. Perhaps I should have brought them here sooner. I'm not used to…coordinating services with members of the supernatural world."

He continued. "I don't think the Archive is an appropriate place for teenagers. They should have a family, a home, an education, a chance to make something of themselves. I just don't know how to make that happen. This is new for the DoDD and we don't have the processes in place yet."

"I don't guess we could stay here," Ben said quietly. "It looks like you have room, and you aren't afraid of werewolves."

Lena smiled gently at him as she answered. "This place has seen more death and despair than any young person needs to encounter, Ben, and we have been notified of a new threat to our safety that we must take seriously. We wouldn't be good for you."

Shifting her gaze to Rook, she continued. "I have friends who may be able to help with a long-term plan for Ben and Beth. Their son was a werewolf and they have the facility to handle the change. They are also wonderful people and I'm sure they would love to meet the Rileys."

"You said 'was a werewolf.' Does that mean he isn't any longer?" Beth asked.

"No, it means that he's dead. Killed in a motorcycle accident, only 35 years old. Tragic, really. He was their only child." She turned back to Rook. "I can ask them to come to Barry if you like, Dominic. If nothing else they can give you advice. Together we'll figure something out."

An agreement was reached, the evening ended, and Ben, Beth, and Dominic left with a promise from Tom to visit them at the archive the day after the full moon, to see how they got along. Tom hoped that Lena's friends would be all right, and maybe even give the kids a home and a fresh start. One thing was for certain—Tom was going to stick with them and do whatever he could to help them along. They were in his pack now.


	13. Chapter 13 Freedom

Lena hated being confined. Honolulu Heights was a big house, but it wasn't big enough. She needed to walk, to run, to ride a bike, to dance until she was exhausted and dripping with sweat. She didn't need to sit at a table answering emails and coordinating her business calendar and tracking the worldwide search for Hetty that she had established long before she knew of the threat against Hal. Lena had her own agenda, vampire-wise, and it included Hetty's extermination. Maybe using Hal as bait would be the easiest way to make it happen, but Lena would rather it didn't come to that.

She and Hal had their routines in place and he had even helped her unpack the clothes she had shipped from home. She could tell he was disappointed by the lack of frilly girly things in her wardrobe, but she didn't care. She had nobody to please but herself, and she liked practical clothes.

Lena called the Harrimans to see if she could begin demolition on the space that was to become her dance studio, but they advised against it until all the plans were in place. It would be at least another few days. Besides, she didn't have the tools for the job—they were on order but had yet to arrive. That's the trouble with internet shopping; no instant gratification. Everything had to be shipped in.

Finally she couldn't take it anymore and just stood in the middle of the floor and yelled. "Jesus fucking christ-on-a-cracker, I need to **do** something!"

Hal looked up from his jigsaw puzzle. "Restless?"

"Shit yeah, aren't you?"

"As a matter of fact I am," he replied. "Other me appreciated the bars of his cage and the endless useless trivial tasks he gave himself. I do not."

"Great. That's it, then. C'mon, Fangboy, you and me are going out." Lena scrawled a note for Alex and Tom, who had gone to the Archive to visit Ben and Beth Riley:

**Gone out.  
Be back.  
L (& H)**

She headed out the back door and Hal followed her, bemused. She walked to the center of the enclosed garden and turned to face him. "Here we are."

Hal was disappointed to learn that their trip only went this far, but he had to admit that there was a nice breeze blowing a hint of saltwater up from the docks, as well as the scent of roses from somewhere, and the seabirds squabbling in the distance didn't sound too annoying. Suddenly Hal realized that the world had frozen around him: no breeze, no smells, no sounds. The air took on that particularly effervescent quality that warned him something was coming, but he was still unprepared when Lena grabbed him around the waist and pulled him to her.

"Hang on!" And she laughed as suddenly they were moving inside a bubble of stillness that shouldn't exist.

Hal threw his arms around her neck and squeezed his eyes shut, and before he could say "Oh shit!" he felt his feet on the ground again. Lena pulled them apart and looked around, clearly satisfied that she had chosen an isolated landing spot.

Hal spun around, gasping at the sudden change of scenery. "We're in the Brecon Beacons, I'm sure of it. I haven't been to this area, but I recognize the shape of those hills, this is somewhere in the Black Mountains."

"If you say so. I just focused on 'isolated, no warm-blooded creatures nearby'." Lena also looked around until she spotted a large outcropping of rock a good mile away and at the top of the slope they had landed on. There were gravel slides, gullies, and brushy areas between them and the outcropping. Lena decided it would be an excellent destination point.

"Race you to the big rock!" She pointed to the outcropping, gave Hal a backhand slap on the chest, and took off in a run.

Hal hesitated a moment, but the predator in him couldn't stand the sight of her getting ahead of him. "Bollocks!" He took off after her.

They ran, Lena always slightly ahead, Hal pushing to catch up. He didn't notice how fast they ran or how high and far they leapt to clear brush and gullies. She scrambled across loose gravel and so did he; he used his hands to balance himself on the steepening slope and ignored the dirt and sweat and pain until at last they reached the outcropping. Lena pulled herself onto it and let out a whoop before spinning to see Hal join her. She collapsed onto the rock and leaned back on her elbows, panting and laughing.

He wavered on his feet, hands on his knees, and gasped, "I thought—you weren't—trying to—kill me." He flopped onto the rock next to her and did his best to breathe. In theory he was dead and didn't need oxygenated lungs or a working heart, but Hal had never fully reconciled himself to that theory. His heart pounded almost painfully in his chest, and the stitch in his side assured him that his lungs were valiantly trying to pump oxygen into his system.

Lena sat up and used her shirttail to wipe the sweat from her face. She was a dirty, sweaty mess and as happy as a pig in slop. Hal was just as dirty and sweaty, but she wasn't sure he was quite as happy.

"Damn, I needed that," she said. "I have got to get that dance studio done so I have someplace to burn off some energy."

He turned his head a bit to look at her. "If it keeps me from doing this every day, I'm happy to help with the construction effort."

"Good, 'cause that's what you'll be doing. Do you have much experience with a wrecking bar? Sawsall? Drill-driver? When was the last time you built something Hal, before the age of power tools?"

"I don't think I've ever really 'built' anything, architecturally speaking. It will be a grand new experience, I'm sure." He sat up and gazed over the territory beneath them. "I don't see a lake or river from here."

"Do you need one?"

"I am thirsty, so unless you can pull a magical water bottle from your whatever…" Seeing her eyeroll, he continued. "Then I propose we find some water in the area. Without knowing where we are, I can't say how far away or in what direction that would be."

"We'll fly," Lena said nonchalantly as she got to her feet. Hal stayed where he was, shaking his head. "Oh come on, I'll take it easy on you this time. No bullet train. We'll go slow, look around."

"That sounds even worse," he said, although he allowed her to pull him to his feet. "I'm not keen on the idea of being carried around like a child as you sightsee through the Black Mountains."

"How about I piggyback you?" She turned around and carefully unfurled her wings to show him that there was room for him to squeeze between them. "I'll tie us together so you won't fall off. You can see where we're going, you won't have to worry about me dropping you, and you can point me in the right direction if you think I'm going off course." She had the bola in her hand, ready to go.

Hal considered her suggestion. "Piggybacking" as she called it, wasn't his favorite position when dealing with a woman, but he didn't mind it. In fact, he was concerned that he might enjoy it a bit too much and anger her in the process, a thought that apparently also occurred to her. She looked at him over her shoulder.

"Try not to get a boner just thinking about it, all right?" She rolled her eyes. "Men. So predictable." There was clearly a pun built into her last statement.

Because he didn't have much choice Hal cautiously stepped between her wings, brushed against the satin-steel of her feathers, and set himself against her back. He draped his arms loosely around her neck. She stood on tiptoe to equal his height as she lashed them together just above the waist and made sure the bola was snug around them both. Then she said the words he dreaded.

"Hang on!"

Hal felt the lift of her wings, saw the ground recede, and heard the air whistle past his ears until suddenly they were in a bubble again, but moving over the landscape several hundred feet in the air. Lena must have done something to keep them from being seen. Neat trick, another one he'd never heard of. As soon as they gained altitude they both saw a lake in the distance and Lena flew toward it, circling a bit until she found an isolated inlet into which a stream emptied. Running water was more likely to be drinkable.

Hal tried to play it cool as they set down, but his entire body hummed with excitement and internally he was screaming that flying with Lena was THE MOST AMAZING THING HE HAD EVER DONE! Instead he studied the stream, which appeared to have relatively clean water.

"These streams used to be very clear. Who knows, nowadays," he said as he cupped his hand in the water and brought a sip to his mouth. He noticed that his hand was trembling just a bit, whether from excitement, exhaustion, or fear he couldn't be sure.

"It's not like dirty water is going to kill us," Lena responded as she also knelt and cupped her hand to catch a drink. When she had sated her thirst Lena walked to the edge of the lake, kicked off her shoes, and rolled up her jeans. She waded into the water and sluiced the dirt off her head and arms, shaking the water off as she returned to the shore. Hal decided it was a good idea and did the same. He joined her on the shore and they rested in the grass and allowed the sun to dry their hair and clothes.

"Do you do that often?" he asked.

"What, fly?" She shook her head. "Hardly ever. I was raised to follow human paths as much as possible and only use my gifts when necessary."

"Why?"

"It keeps me from getting a big ego. I mean, I know what I'm capable of, but I have to stay grounded, literally and figuratively, so I don't forget my purpose. When I was young I chose to protect human life, not just to use my gifts for my own advantage and to use this world as my playground." She gave him a lopsided smile. "It is a pretty cool playground though, and I have some pretty cool gifts."

"Agreed. Your ability to be unseen, to move without time passing…I've never heard of those."

"Well, it's not like we go around advertising our gifts. You aren't supposed to know everything about us, remember? Natural enemies and all that." In truth, those gifts were uniquely hers.

"Right. Sorry. Forgot. When Alex rent-a-ghosted me it was like moving through death."

"Well, she's dead, Hal." He gave her a no-shit look. She continued. "Time has stopped for Alex, but she hasn't gone through her door yet, so in some ways her death is incomplete. That's why rent-a-ghosting feels like it does, and why she can still claim some qualities of a living person if she's strong enough."

"The thing with you, it felt different." Hal prompted Lena to tell him more. He found himself wanting to learn all he could about her.

"It's an angel thing, moving without time because angels exist beyond time. Most eternal creatures can do it, to some extent or other. No passengers though, most people can't handle it, scrambles their brains."

"What!?" Hal had been laying on his side, leaning up on one elbow. He sat bolt upright as he spoke.

"What?" She shrugged nonchalantly, "Come on, Hal, you're not exactly people any longer. And if the bullet train did shake you up a little I could probably fix it."

"My lady, I fear it was a mistake to trust you. I wrongly believed that you knew what you were doing when you brought me here," he said, returning to the formal language that indicated a loss of the easy comfort they had established.

"Well, shit." Lena was upset by the turn in their conversation. "Look Hal, I don't know what I'm doing with any part of this thing. It's not like I've hung out with vampires before. I just have a sense of what should work, so that's what I do."

"Ah. The all-important belief in yourself that you were explaining to Alex," he said sarcastically.

She replied quietly, "I have only been captured one time in my life, and that was because I believed I could be. I learned a hard lesson that day, and I will never doubt myself again."

They sat quietly for a little while and watched water birds try to catch fish in the lake. Hal was glad for the time to give his exhausted muscles a chance to recuperate. He glanced at Lena. She seemed physically unaffected by their race/climb, and she was relaxed and seemingly at peace with herself. Her restlessness was gone, as was her watchfulness of him, which was odd considering that they were out in the wide open where anything could happen. She was the most puzzling creature he had ever met.

"What's the longest time you've spent with a vampire, my lady, before you decided to embark on this great experiment?" His words were formal, but his tone was lightly teasing. He reclined again as he spoke, relaxing his manner as well as his voice.

"Hmmm, whew, um…five…minutes maybe? If the crowd was big enough and some of them tried to run?" She frowned as she thought back. "I've never timed it, sorry."

Hal laughed. "My god, how you must have hated coming to live with me!"

"Nice use of the past tense, Fangboy," she said dryly.

"That was technically the correct usage. I can bring it to present tense if you prefer, my lady. How you must hate living with me." Hal began his statement in jest but found himself ending it in bitterness.

"I hate being trapped. End of."

"As do I."

They were silent for a moment as they each reflected on the situation they found themselves in.

"Isn't this rich? Are we a pair?" she sang softly to herself.

"Me here at last on the ground, you in mid-air," Hal matched her vocally on the next line, arching his eyebrows at her surprised look.

"You sing?"

"Only when I'm alone," he replied.

"Gotcha."

He continued, "At least we aren't trapped **with** clowns, because would be my worst nightmare." He tried to keep a straight face, but the corners of his lips twitched in spite his best efforts. Lena almost believed him, until she saw his struggle not to laugh. In a lifetime of unspeakable violence and horror, Hal Yorke had never taken the time to develop a fear of clowns.*

"Smartass," she said casually, laughing with him at the joke.

But the song was in her head now, and she rose to her feet, humming it softly, and began to dance something like a waltz in the grass. She ended near the stream they had drunk from and paused, cocked her head, and listened to the water noises until she found another beat. This time it was a light-footed, light-hearted dance that led her to the lake itself. There she paused again and listened to the gentle slap of water on shore. Her new beat. Skip-skip-slap, skip-skip-slap; she moved along the shore with a foot gently slapping the top of the water with each third step, a folk dance of her own creation.

Hal watched her, fascinated. He knew most formal dances from the past 500 years and could lead a partner effortlessly. He had seen and eaten many amazing dancers; some of the most erotic meals of his life had begun with dance. What Lena was doing wasn't erotic at all. Her dance had no purpose other than the joy of moving in the world. She wasn't so much a woman as she was a wild creature playing in the wilderness.

She turned and realized how far she had gone from him and called out, "Watch out, Fangboy!"

Suddenly she ran, then leapt and spun in the air, bounced into a mid-air somersault, and another, and landed a mere foot from where he sat. She dropped to one knee with a flourish and he applauded politely, but she could see by the look on his face that he was impressed. She had moved so quickly that he could barely tell what she was doing.

"You really dance," he said.

"Only when I'm alone," she replied as she rolled onto her stomach in the grass. She propped herself up on her elbows and watched a bug work its way along the ground.

"I know that you know how to kill me," she said without looking at him.

"Cut out your heart and brain and burn them?" Hal nodded his awareness. "Your blood would kill me first."

"Yes."

"Does that mean you can regenerate one or the other, but not both?" he asked.

"I don't know, and I don't intend to find out," she said, looking at him with a smile. "Some rules I'd rather not break."

Lena relaxed for a little while, but eventually she stood up and stretched. "Well, shit, we should probably head back home soon. Tom and Alex will worry if we're gone too long." She looked down at Hal. "So Fangboy, how do you want to travel? Bullet train or slow boat to China?"

Hal tapped the side of his head to signify his as-yet unscrambled brain. "Slow boat to China, my lady. Just in case."

It was past 6 o'clock by the time they walked through the back door at Honolulu Heights, dirty, disheveled, slightly wind-blown, and happy. Tom and Alex were in the kitchen, with Tom putting together his supper when they returned.

"Honey, I'm home!" Lena called out her signature greeting as she entered the house.

"Don't you mean we're home?" Hal said as he entered the house behind her. She hadn't insisted that he lead through the door; her watchfulness had yet to return.

She had taken the scenic route back to Honolulu Heights, which he enjoyed, and pulled a few aerial stunts just to shake him up, which he, surprisingly, had also enjoyed. He had held tightly to her through the loops and rolls and may have even wrapped his legs around her at one point—it was a bit of a blur.

"You know, that would have been sexy if it weren't so terrifying," he said, referring to their return flight.

"That's what they all say." She threw the line over her shoulder as she headed for the fridge and a cold beverage. "Aye up!" She tossed him a bottle of water and opened one for herself as they slumped at the table and touched the necks of their bottles in a toast to the day before taking good long drinks.

Alex marched over and crossed her arms. "And just where have you been?" she said with a glare.

Hal and Lena looked at her for a moment before they burst out laughing.

"You wouldn't believe it if we told you," Hal finally got out.

"Just flittering around," Lena managed at about the same time.

When they regained their composure, Hal said, "I need to shower."

"I need to shower," Lena replied.

"Yes you do," Hal said.

"Wait a minute, what are you implying?"

He started laughing again as he got up, took Lena's hand, and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, my lady, we'll flip a coin to see who goes first."

When they returned to the first floor, cleaned up and calmed down, Tom and Alex were sitting on the sofa together watching television. While Lena went to the kitchen in search of food, Hal joined Tom and Alex in the living room. He sat on the sectional and explained briefly where they had gone. "Lena flew us to the Brecon Beacons, we had a good run, and she flew us back."

"What does that mean, she flew you?" Tom asked.

"She picked me up and we flew. With her wings. Like a giant, invisible bird. She does this thing where she can't be seen and…you know, Tom, you're just going to have to take my word for it, because I really can't explain it."

"She carried you?" Alex was grinning. "Like Superman carries Lois Lane? Hal, you're Lois Lane!"

"It wasn't quite like that, Alex, believe me, there is a lot more to it. She does something similar to your rent-a-ghosting when she wants to, but it's some sort of angel thing. I've never heard of it." Hal was most definitely not Lois Lane and he wanted to make that clear. However, he realized that he was failing miserably to do so.

"Wait, so she flies and she rent-a-ghosts? Hal, have you been drinking?" Alex was enjoying herself.

"He's telling the truth," Lena came to Hal's rescue with a plate of chicken salad sandwiches and a bowl of spiced apple chunks with two forks sticking out of it. She plopped onto the sectional next to him, handing him the plate while setting the apples on her other side. She snagged a sandwich and Hal took one as well before he set the plate on his off side.

"It isn't rent-a-ghosting, but it is the same principle. I can create a bubble in time and move within that bubble so when I get where I'm going no time has passed. It is an angel thing, immortals live beyond time and can move from place to place without needing time to do it. I can also just flap my wings and fly like a bird. We did some of both."

They ate in front of the television like normal people, the vampire and the Seraphin Nepos with their werewolf and ghost companions, and no remarks were made until Alex watched them sharing the single bowl of spiced apples.

"Doesn't that bother you," she asked Hal, "sharing the bowl? You'll be getting her germs and stuff."

"Other me would most certainly be bothered by sharing a bowl, or by eating without proper dishes properly placed at a dining table," Hal replied. "I'm just happy for a clean bowl and a fork."

"Especially the fork," Lena added, waving hers gently in front of them. "What a great invention."

"Remember when we had to carry our own utensils in a box? And forks were considered effeminate?" Hal shook his head, recalling the days when every food was finger food and he was lucky to have a spoon to call his own.

"You two are worse than my nana and grampa, with your stories about the old days," Alex said.

"Of course we are," Lena replied, unperturbed. "We are centuries older than your grandparents and have a lot more old days to talk about."

"My biggest fear is that I'm going to end up like you some day, talking about the old days and how much better things are now," Alex was sort of teasing but not really, and she could tell that her fear carried through to her friends.

"I don't think you'll be around that long," Lena said. "A few more years, maybe even a few decades, but not centuries. I just don't see it."

"Can you tell? Can you find out?"

"Do you want me to?"

"I don't know, let me think about it?"

Lena shrugged. "Sure, no rush. I can ask around if you want, maybe get a hint of what your unfinished business is."

Hal thought it was time to change the subject, so he asked Tom about the Rileys, a topic that Tom was happy to discuss at length. Hal also asked about the hotel, another good topic for Tom, and the conversation flowed smoothly until the evening ended on a congenial note for everyone.

# # #

Hal lay on his back in bed and stared at the ceiling. "I had fun today."

"So did I," Lena said from the next bed.

He didn't realize that he had spoken aloud until he heard her reply. Having inadvertently begun a conversation, however, he decided to continue. "I don't have fun."

"Really?" She rolled over to face him. "I thought you took great pride in your ability to amuse and entertain yourself and your cohorts." She wasn't being sarcastic or mean, she was merely referring to his dossier.

"Yes, but my amusements include enslavement, torture, and murder, so I don't put them in the same category as 'fun.'"

"So the word 'fun' carries connotations of what? Light-hearted? Innocent? No creatures were harmed in the making of this fun?"

He chuckled. She had once again managed to explain exactly what he meant with words he would never consider using. "Something like that, yes."

"What about other you? Doesn't he have fun?"

"He is afraid of fun. It could lead to the loss of his precious self-control." He thought for a moment about the day. "I also don't laugh freely, as a general rule."

"Laughter is good for you."

"The things I usually laugh at aren't good for anyone."

"And other you?"

"Mild to moderate, brief laughter or smile. The self-control issue again."

"Other you sounds like a real stick-in-the-mud."

"He is. I hate him. He's unnatural."

"You know you said that he enjoys the bars of his cage?" Lena propped herself up on an elbow so she could see Hal better. "I think you have it wrong. I think he is the cage." As Hal moved to face her and mimic her position in his own bed, she continued. "I think that the human part of you eventually gets so sick of what the vampire does that you put up a cage, or put on another personality like a suit of armor, and you squeeze into it and lock the vampire down. At some point you learned to take the parts of your character that worked to control the curse and you amplified them into a whole other personality."

"That may be it," he agreed, "or I may just be insane." Hal had never admitted that to anyone.

"I don't think you're insane. Well, no more than usual." She smiled. "I've seen a lot of insanity. You don't fit the profile. No, you are something else altogether."

He lay on his back again and she absently did the same in her bed. He frowned to himself, not sure that he should say what he was thinking. They were getting along well. He didn't want to spoil it.

"When you came here, I thought you were going to keep me prisoner," he began, "or turn me back into him, make me good again."

"You are a prisoner, Hal, but so am I. We are locked in this thing together."

"I see that now. I don't understand how you can do it, give up your life and come here, come to this. But I see that you are as much bound to it as I am. Is that why you are being so…decent about it?"

"It makes sense to keep things as normal as possible for both of us, except for the enslavement-torture-murder thing. I'm in this for the long haul, Hal." She sighed. "I hate that you are a vampire. I hate that you chose such a horrendous life for yourself. I hate seeing the curse draped over your body like a blood-soaked sheet. Were it not for that, I think we could be friends."

"You can still see it?"

"Yes, always. It is getting lighter. Today it was barely visible."

"Ah. So that's why you could stand to touch me." There was a note of sadness in his voice. She didn't respond. She wasn't willing to tell him the effort it took her to keep his curse from invading her whenever they had prolonged contact.

"I like having you close," he whispered to himself, with a hint of wonderment, caught off guard by his own feelings.

"Early days, Hal. You may change your mind once I get a sawsall in my hand." Lena rolled away from him as she spoke, hiding her own surprise at what she had heard. "Good night."

"Good night, Lena." He lay awake for a long time and listened to her breathe, to the little purr in her throat. He liked having her close to him, and he liked himself when her influence calmed the vampire inside him. Hal Yorke hadn't truly been human for centuries, but he was beginning to remember what it felt like. He sighed. Now if he could just keep from falling for her.

*They are referencing lyrics from the song "Send in the Clowns" from **A Little Night Music**, a musical by Stephen Sondheim (book by Hugh Wheeler). The musical's title is actually the English translation the German name for Mozart's **Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G Major**, _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_.


	14. Chapter 14 Demolition is the First Step

When Hal woke up, the first thing he did was look for Lena. This morning he found her at the window on the far side of his bed, looking out at the rain. "Good morning," he said.

She responded, "I hate rain." There was deep sorrow in her voice. "That's not true. I don't hate rain, but I do hate today."

He sat up in his bed and looked more closely at her. There were tears on her cheeks. "What's wrong?"

"Every day of the year is the birthday or death day of somebody I love," she replied. "That's what happens when you live long enough."

"Whose is it today?" He got out of bed and stood next to her as he spoke.

She looked at him for a moment, measuring him, deciding if she wanted to share this much of herself with him. She looked away, back into the grey of the morning. "My son. Birthday. He was human. He lived a human life. He had a human death. Long ago."

Hal was silent. It hadn't occurred to him that she would have a human family or human children.

"Sometimes I think I'll drown in the weight of the death I have seen." She continued staring out the window.

Hal was unsure of what to do. Neither version of himself handled sorrow well, and he knew that she wouldn't allow him to comfort her the way he wanted: to take her in his arms and kiss the tears from her face, kiss her until she forgot about rain and sorrow and thought only of him. He would…Hal slammed the door on his thoughts quickly, before the curse betrayed him. Amorous Hal was the last thing Lena needed right now.

Finally he said awkwardly, "Need a shoulder?"

"I'm not allowed to need a shoulder," she replied bitterly, "to lean on or cry on."

"I won't tell," he said as he moved between her and the window and gently drew her to him. Only when he felt her cheek and hair and tears and breath on his skin did he admit to himself that he wanted the contact more than she did. He breathed in the smell of soap and shampoo and her personal scent, sweeter than human, somehow, more intoxicating. His body hummed as contact with her caused changes within him at the cellular level. This was what had made him reckless and happy yesterday, although he had put it down to the flying and the chance to escape the house for a little while.

She stayed for a few seconds before pulling away and shaking herself as if she was trying to shake off a nightmare. She rubbed her hands over her face as she moved away from the window and from him. "The challenge for the day is to find something to do. I really need to dance. I need the twist or the jitterbug or the Charleston or something else ridiculous and silly and meaningless."

Hal looked so alarmed at the idea of being dragged into the jitterbug that she couldn't help laughing. "Okay Fangboy, take a breath. We'll find something else to occupy our time. Do you know where I could find a few demons to kill?"

"Wherever they make assembly instructions for IKEA furniture. Sadly, that would require a trip out in the rain. Perhaps we could just have breakfast and see what presents itself." Hal spoke lightly as he pulled on the clothes he had brought into the room the previous night. Clearly she wanted things back to normal, which for them meant no real closeness.

Lena moved to the wardrobe to dress as well, and for the first time she didn't stop to make sure he wasn't watching her change. He looked up from tying his shoes to see her night shirt slipping over her head. It revealed the graceful curves of her back like a rising curtain reveals an exquisite theatre set. He watched, fascinated and curious—would she have the marks of wings on her back?

"I feel your eyes on me," she said as she tossed the night shirt into the laundry hamper.

"You didn't say not to look." He turned away as he spoke and began to make his bed.

"I didn't think I had to. How many times do you have to hear, 'Don't jump off a cliff' before you no longer need the warning?" The last few words were muffled as she pulled on her day shirt, which only differed from her night shirt in its purpose. Lena lived in t-shirts.

"An incorrect analogy," Hal said, and when she turned to argue with him, Lena saw that he was telling the truth. His curse hadn't darkened and his eyes were clear of hunger. He chuckled at her surprised look. "I can, on occasion, appreciate beauty for its own sake, my lady."

Lena blushed and turned away to unseal the bedroom door and open it before quickly making her bed. Hal took her action as a sign that he could leave their room so he took first turn in the bathroom. He recognized that he had been given an opportunity for an escape attempt, but he had no interest in pursuing it. As he stared into the vanity mirror that hid his reflection, Hal realized that it would take a great deal to force him away from her. She was his new addiction.

# # #

What Lena found to occupy their time that day was moving Hal back into his own room. He suspected that Lena's decision had something to do with their closeness of the previous day and especially that morning, and he was right. She had felt his need when he drew her to him; she hadn't anticipated it, and she wasn't prepared to accept it. Civility was acceptable, even expected under the conditions in which they would be living. Cordiality, a certain level of comfort, even a casual friendship built on their growing familiarity were all acceptable.

What she had sensed in him that morning was too human, and too familiar, and completely unacceptable. Vampires only need blood, and there was no sense of the vampire in Hal's need for her that morning. And yet, as she accepted his comfort for those few seconds, she felt the curse reach out for her and press in on the bitterness and anger she still carried for him.

They were washing up the breakfast dishes when Lena said, "I think we can make it work, if we rearrange the rooms so our beds are just across the wall from each other."

The comment came out of nowhere, but Hal knew immediately what she was talking about. He was surprisingly unhappy with the idea of regaining his privacy.

She continued, "Maintaining proximity at night is the big thing, and that would do it. We spend the days together anyway, and it might be a good idea to see if we can be in separate rooms, at least for a little while, without putting you at risk. What do you think?"

"It would be good to have my own room again," he lied. "And you said when you came here that your goal was to allow us each some independence."

"We'll just have an open-door policy except when changing clothes," Lena said thoughtfully, still working her way through the idea. "I don't guess you'll freak out if I wander in and plop down on your bed while you're reading."

"I assure you, my lady, that I will never 'freak out' to find you on my bed." He used the banter that allowed him to say a portion of what he meant but kept him from being too honest with her.

She rolled her eyes, of course. "We just have to make sure that we stay close, otherwise we're wasting our time. We're making progress, Hal. We are weakening the power of the blood curse. I can see it."

"And I can feel it," he agreed. "I wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly, or at all, for that matter. From the stories I heard, I thought that proximity had to be maintained at all times. But you are right. I can be across the room from you with no difficulties, for a short time at least."

"Well there you go." Lena accepted his statement as proof that he was ready for the move and immediately began plotting it out. They studied each room and decided what could go where before starting in Hal's room. With his bed already out of the way, it was easier to rearrange his room first.

The move took all day because it required shifting large pieces of furniture, which in turn required hoovering the rugs in the places where the furniture had been sitting. In Lena's case she had to move the dressing table and decided to replace it altogether with a desk and chair she found in the attic. Work space was more valuable than a table in front of which to primp, especially since she didn't bother with makeup.

"I don't suppose Alex is available to assist?" Hal asked as they considered moving his wardrobe.

"Nope. She's spending the day with Angus," Lena replied.

"Angus?"

"One of the movers. They met when we did the haul-away."

"Oh, of course. Boisterous young chap. Quite fit, I believe Alex said at the time. I could characterize him as burly." Hal recalled the ghost, and Alex's interest in him.

"That's the one."

"I hope she enjoys herself," Hal said. "So, it's a date?"

"Alex considers it a date. In fact, she intends to find a way for them to have sex before the day is over. I fear she may be disappointed," Lena replied.

"Because ghosts can't have sex?" Hal said.

"No, we both know that's not true. Angus may prefer the companionship of men when it comes to that area," Lena said as she moved to one side of the wardrobe in preparation of moving it.

Hal studied her for a moment. "You checked up on him, didn't you? Alex is a grown woman, you know."

"And a young ghost, so yes, I had discreet inquiries made. Now come on, Fangboy, let's get cracking. This thing isn't going to move itself."

Hal moved reluctantly to the other side of the wardrobe. "In spite of your inquiries, I'd still wager that Alex can make a go of it with young Angus. The girl is determined to have sex."

"I'll take that bet," Lena said. "State your terms."

"Let me have a think on it," he replied with a smile. "I want to make it worth my while."

The bet ended up being a simple one—dinner of choice, prepared by the loser. Alex's expression when she returned to Honolulu Heights that evening told Hal that he would be cooking. Lena's I-told-you-so look didn't help his mood any. How the bloody hell was he going to pull off 'a rack of ribs, pit beans, and potato salad'? For that matter, what the bloody hell were they? Hal suspected he would be spending a long time with Google before he figured it all out.

Lena said good night to Hal at the door to his room. She looked him over carefully; the curse lay quietly over him.

"Do I need to lock you in tonight?"

"Would you sleep better knowing that I was confined?" He returned her question with his own.

"No. Would you?"

He gave it a moment's thought. "Possibly."

"Then I will. Good night, Hal," she said, and he replied as he closed the door between them.

He felt her touch it and sensed that it had been sealed. He realized that he was trapped. He hated being trapped, but it was for the best, and she could let him out at any time. Unless she simply chose not to. He had a moment's panic until he heard her voice from the other side of the door.

"I'm still here. Are you okay? I know you don't like being trapped."

"It just occurred to me, my lady, that I am at your mercy. What would happen if you chose not to open my door in the morning?" He just managed to sound calm.

She chuckled. "Hal, you are always at my mercy. Haven't you figured that out yet?"

"Still. This is different."

She unsealed the door and opened it. "Maybe a better idea is for us both to sleep with our doors ajar a bit, so we can check on each other if need be, without feeling like we are intruding."

"I am willing to try that alternative," he said, keeping the relief from his voice. He stood in the doorway of his room and watched her go to her own and close the door behind her. In a minute she re-opened it slightly, a sign that she had changed into her night clothes and no longer required privacy.

Hal did the same, closing his door as he was supposed to and re-opening it slightly when he was in the shorts that he had taken to wearing at night. As he settled into bed Hal heard the sound of music from the next room. Elgar, if he wasn't mistaken, the _Enigma Variations_. He heard the whispers of fabric and footsteps and knew she was dancing, like water in a stream or a feather on the breeze. She was dancing because she was alone.

# # #

They were finishing the washing up after lunch when Lena's tools arrived. They had two distinct reactions at the knock on the door. "Human." Hal immediately became alert for signs of his bloodlust returning.

"Tools!" Lena ran down the hall to the front door and paused to look back into the kitchen at Hal. When she saw him behind the counter, alert but calm, she flashed him a huge, warm smile. He was checking himself, a good step forward. The curse hadn't flared, another good step forward.

Hal thought he would slay dragons to keep himself in the warmth of her smile. Not that he believed in dragons, or in his ability to slay one before she beat him to it.

She quickly signed for the order and sent the delivery driver on her way. Within minutes the living room was strewn with an array of odd and terrifying equipment, most of which Hal had no idea how to use. Alex, who had appeared from her room in the attic when she heard the noise, clearly had some experience and quickly got battery packs charging for the cordless power tools. Her father, she explained, had been happy to have her help with home repair chores and the like.

After cutting the power to the two rooms they would be working in, the trio went to work pulling off the woodwork from around the doors and windows. Before they began Lena insisted on putting on a long-sleeved shirt over her ubiquitous t-shirt, and she wore leather work gloves and sturdy boots that had come with the tools.

Hal looked at her quizzically.

"Workplace accidents are no laughing matter," she said, "especially with a vampire in the room."

Of course, she was protecting Hal from the effects of her blood. Her thoughtfulness truly involved forethought and planning on her part.

Lena got a hammer and flat bar and started prying the trim boards off the walls. Hal watched for a minute before picking up a second set of the same type of tools and doing the same. Alex used ghost power to pop the nails out and drop them into an empty bucket. She stacked the boards in the hall for Tom to look at when he got home.

Lena worked quickly and expertly and moved with grace and precision that left Hal feeling like a clod as he tried to keep up. Construction had never been his area of interest, although circumstances had forced him into that type of labor from time to time. To make matters worse, the skills related to building had historically been man-territory and Hal now found himself working with two attractive women who knew more about what they were doing than he did.

Hal was ready for a break long before Lena stopped for tea. By the time Tom got home from work and came upstairs to investigate the noise, the two rooms were just about stripped out and ready for the real demolition to begin. Tom was thrilled with the new tools, of course, and required a piece-by-piece examination of them all, after which they fixed supper and were done for the day. Or so Hal thought.

"Hey Alex, you want to rent-a-ghost some plaster to the bin?" Lena asked as she picked up an 8-pound sledge hammer and a 6-pound wrecking bar. "I'm in the mood to tear something up."

"Fuck yeah!" Alex was right behind her up the stairs.

The two men looked at each other for a minute. "Well, shit," Hal said as he heaved himself up out of his comfortable spot on the sofa and trudged up the stairs.

"Reckon that leaves me for the washing up, then," Tom said, and he went to the kitchen to get started.

Hal got to the construction site in time to watch Lena swing the sledge at a wall and bury the heavy head of the hammer in the wallpaper-covered plaster. She wrenched it back out, pulling a chunk of the plaster and lathe wall with it. Plaster dust and horsehair flew and sifted through the air in the room, caught in the swirls of breeze that came in through the gaping window. They had removed the panes earlier in the day.

Hal quickly stepped into the room and shut the door behind him to keep the dust from escaping into the rest of the house as Lena swung again. "Yeah baby!" she yelled as she pulled off a large chunk of wall and sent it crashing to the floor. "You should try this, Hal. It's good for you!"

He took the sledge hammer from her hand. "If you insist," he said with a polite smile. It looked like dirty, messy work to him, but he'd give it a go, especially since bloodless destruction was the only type he was allowed these days.

Hal quickly learned that he enjoyed the raw force needed for full-scale demolition and that it was indeed good for him. He worked his way around the room with the sledge and Lena followed with the wrecking bar to pry the remaining plaster and lathe off the studs. Alex threw the small pieces out the window into the waiting bin below and rent-a-ghosted the bigger ones that wouldn't fit through the window.

Tom joined the fun as quickly as he could and brought a second sledge with him. Soon the walls were stripped and they turned their attention to the ceiling.

"Reckon we need a ladder," Tom said as they stood together on one side of the room, surveying their handiwork and considering the next step.

They brought in the stepladder and got to the serious business of taking down the ceiling safely. Tom stood on the ladder with the wrecking bar and peeled off pieces of plaster and lathe, while Alex attended to cleanup and occasionally levitated big pieces carefully to the floor. Lena moved to one wall of the room with a four-foot level and Hal followed, unsure of what she was planning.

"Look at the studs, Hal. There are nails in them where the lathes were nailed up before they plastered. I have to either replace the studs or pull all the nails. I'm not sure which to do. I thought I'd check them to see how straight they are. If they're in good shape, I can leave them. If not, I'll replace them."

He said truthfully, "I don't know why that matters." For some reason it didn't bother him to be honest with her when it was just the two of them; something in her manner made his façade of superiority unnecessary.

"We will be putting sound-deadening plasterboard up and it is of uniform thickness, so the wall will be wavy and lumpy if the studs aren't straight." She pointed at the uneven thickness of the plaster chunks on the floor. "A good plasterer can make an uneven wall smooth and straight, but there's no give with the stuff we'll be putting up. It's double-layered, one layer of concrete and one of plaster, with a membrane between. The studs have to be in good shape for it."

"So you're going to check the individual boards that are standing in each wall?"

"Yep, that's what we're going to do," she replied with a smile, making sure he heard the 'we.'

"Then could I suggest that we start with a wall that you don't intend to tear down?" Hal smirked as he pointed out that they were standing in front of the dividing wall between rooms, which was slated for removal.

Lena facepalmed, leather glove and all, as she realized her mistake. "Jesus, Hal, it's a good thing you're here." With that they moved to an exterior wall and began the process of marking studs for replacement. Hal was more than happy to helpand his heart skipped a bit faster after her comment. She had never suggested, even in an offhand manner, that she was glad to have him around.

Tom finished the ceiling teardown and went to shower and get ready for bed. He enjoyed working with his mates again, but he took his position at the Barry Grand very seriously and built the rest of his schedule around that. As hotel manager Tom spent a good part of every day at the hotel, and in truth he was there more than necessary, but Tom was beginning to feel like it was his place and he enjoyed it. He really enjoyed it when Alex came to visit him there; he didn't understand why Hal had always seemed annoyed by her when she popped in. Time spent with Alex was the best kind of time in Tom's mind.

Hal and Lena worked until it was their turn to wash up, which they did with much less fuss now, each waiting in turn outside the bathroom rather than in it. Alex decided to work a while longer—it was better than watching crap telly. She had the cleanup finished and nails pulled from all the studs by morning.

# # #

With the second room stripped to the studs and the wall between the two rooms torn out, Lena could see that she would have a decent-sized space for dancing. The Harrimans returned to Honolulu Heights with finished plans for the first steps of the renovation and the initial suggestions for modernizing the Barry Grand. The home reno was an immediate go, with a crew to begin work and materials slated for delivery the next morning.

The hotel proved to be more problematic, as Bill Harriman suggested that the best way to maximize its potential was to divide it into sections, one family-oriented and the other a more exclusive, boutique style. It was a very popular idea in the hotel and resort industry and one the Lena was already familiar with. Hotel 41 was a perfect example of the concept.

Tom didn't get the concept, and Hal was dubious that anyone would make the trip to Barry Island for the sake of a luxurious stay at a premium price when there were so many more interesting places to go. But Bill Harriman had done his research and presented the beauty of Wales and the possibility of the Barry Grand as an exclusive getaway destination in a very persuasive manner.

In the end Lena settled the discussion by deciding not to decide. They would begin the work in all areas except the one Bill had set aside as a possible separate entity. In the meantime, the housemates would investigate the concept of a boutique hotel and study Bill's presentation further.

Lena could have simply overruled Tom and Hal, but in all honesty the hotel wasn't that important to her. Keeping equilibrium in the house was much closer to the top of her list, and besides, there was plenty of time to make the decision.

"I suppose you want as many supernaturals as possible on the crews?" Bill asked.

"The house, absolutely. The hotel, no," she replied. "Tom has a human staff in place that we'd like to keep employed, if possible, during the renovation, so human crews are fine. What do you think, Tom, any ideas about your people?"

"Well I was thinkin', what with crews working around the place all day, they're bound to get hungry an' aught," Tom replied. "Maybe we could keep the kitchen open, fix breakfast and lunch and maybe tea."

Hal looked at Tom, impressed by his forethought. "That's a good idea, Tom. The kitchen is one area of the hotel that's in good shape. Tradesmen usually have to provide their own meals, but I'm sure they would appreciate having that included in their contract."

Lena agreed. "I like that idea. Also, I'd like to use as much local labor as possible, but maybe the out-of-towners can stay in the section of the hotel that we're not sure what to do with?"

"I reckon we could take care of 'em," Tom said casually. He was certain that his people were up for the job.

Lena turned to Bill Harriman. "Just to be clear, Bill, Tom is the man on the ground for this job. All questions go to him. If he needs me, he can call me."

Bill nodded his head. "Understood." He turned to Tom and extended his hand. "I look forward to working with you." The two men shook hands. "Now, where can we go to look at a timeline and start planning?"

"We'll leave you to it," Lena said as she stood up from the dining room table. "Georgia, let's walk through the spaces you'll be working in. I want a better picture." The women headed for the kitchen with Georgia's set of blueprints.

Hal stayed at the table with Tom and Bill Harriman. "You don't mind if I listen in, do you?" he asked with a smile. "I have some interest in the Barry Grand." Hal was interested in the plans for the hotel renovation, but he was also curious to see how long he could be comfortable without Lena's presence. He didn't know if Bill Harriman would have the same effect on him and wanted the chance to find out.

Hal learned that all guests would be checked out of the hotel by the end of the week, that all furniture and accessories would be loaded onto trucks for shipment to an auction house, that Bill had several excellent craftsmen and foremen coming to supervise various aspects of the job, and that he, Hal, couldn't stand to be away from Lena for more than 15 minutes.

That's how long it took before he had to excuse himself and go upstairs where she and Georgia were studying the blueprints for the new bathroom.

Lena saw him coming down the hall. "What do you think?" she asked as she held out a mostly unrolled sheaf of large pages.

"I have no idea what I'm looking at," Hal confessed.

"Come here, then, we'll go over it," Lena said casually, and she stepped into the empty room with Hal close behind her. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor and spread out the blueprint and he sat next to her, close enough for their shoulders to touch.

"Here, hold this end, the thing wants to roll up," Lena said, and Hal did as he was told, brushing her hand as he set his own down on the paper. He needed her contact after their time apart.

She held the other end of the roll open and went through the plan, step-by-step, showing him where in the room everything would be and tangentially teaching him what the symbols on the paper meant as she went. She talked about the dimensions involved, and space between toilet, sink, and bathtub, and how Georgia had decided to add linen storage instead of a separate shower.

Georgia stood in the doorway of the empty room and watched as Hal and Lena sat shoulder-to-shoulder, heads together, and talked like friends. It was a far cry from her first trip to Honolulu Heights and she was struck by the contrast.

When she was certain that Hal understood the suggested layout of the room, Lena explained. "We need to agree on the plan before starting."

"And do you agree?" he asked.

"I do, yeah. I think it's a good plan. What about you?" Lena asked.

"Is there room for the bathtub to be larger?" he asked. "I've always had a penchant for a large, deep tub."

Lena waited for the arch look or the flick of the eyebrow to signify that Hal was suggesting a tub big enough for two, but he was completely straight-faced, so she took him seriously. She remembered that he had been around for the centuries during which bathing was frowned upon by the church and by proper society throughout Europe.

"I love modern technology," she said, again apparently at random.

Hal got the reference this time, however. "Hot and cold running water and a clean vessel to bathe in," he said.

"I'm with you. As big a tub as we can get in the room," Lena said. "Georgia?" she called over her shoulder, "what do you think?"

Georgia Harriman joined them and decided that there was room for a bigger tub, but there were no standard sizes that fit the larger dimension she had to work with.

"Special order it," Lena said. "Custom-made shouldn't take that much longer. Center-mount faucets," she added, strictly as a design element and not because it would be more comfortable for two people sharing a tub.


	15. Chapter 15 All the Damn Vampires

The next morning Hal learned that construction crews bring the kind of chaos that would drive a saint to drink blood. Lena was in her element and loving every minute of the mess and confusion and noise as things were torn down and carried out and cut up and carried in and Hal was ready to bite a Seraphin, any Seraphin, just to put himself out of his misery by the time she realized how bad off he was.

"Come on, Fangboy," she said. "Let's go for a drive." She grabbed her wallet and keys and they were out the door. She drove for a few minutes in the direction of the nearest thing that resembled a highway before she spoke again.

"What do you need?"

"Contact. With you," he replied, staring blankly ahead. The darkened red shadow of the curse accentuated the tension in his face.

Her hand rested on the shift knob. "Put your hand on mine. Will that do?"

"Yes, thank you." He set his hand on hers and moved with her as she shifted gears smoothly. He immediately felt his body humming as the curse was calmed at the cellular level once again.

"I wasn't expecting you to freak out," she said. "I thought you loved chaos."

"Only when I am the one causing it."

"See, I didn't think of that, but it makes sense," she said. "You need to be in charge to be comfortable."

"Generally speaking, yes, and I can't be in charge of that—" he motioned in the general direction of chaos and madness "—because I know nothing about it."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I anticipate being miserable for the duration," he replied.

"Well, shit. That won't do." They drove in silence for a while. "Did we have breakfast?" she asked.

"Barely," he replied. Their routine had been interrupted before he could finish his tea.

"Do you want to skip straight to lunch? There's a chip shop up here, next to a petrol station," she said, using British words on purpose with a smile. "I could use some petrol anyway."

"Is it on the left hand side of the road? Other me refuses to stop at a petrol station on the left hand side of the road. He considers it bad luck," Hal chuckled at his alter ego's superstition.

"Sadly, I think it is," Lena replied. She pointed it out, on the left, as they drove past.

"I was joking, you know," Hal said. "You weren't supposed to take me seriously."

"Oh? Well, in that case—" she laughed as she jerked the emergency brake to lock up the rear wheels and expertly spun the car 180 degrees, after which she drove sedately up to the petrol station, which was now on the right hand side of the road. She pulled up to the pump, but before she got out Lena stroked the steering wheel with both hands and kissed it gently. "If you were a man I would so be having sex with you right now," she murmured to her car.

After refueling Lena got back behind the wheel and drove across the lot to the fish-and-chip shop. It was early enough that there were only a couple of cars out front. Lena pulled some pound notes from her wallet and handed them to Hal.

"I know you like to be in charge," she said with a smile.

He looked at the money, then at her, puzzled. Why was she being considerate of him when he had been nothing but trouble?

"What? It'll be a game. We'll play 'overly-polite gentleman dude takes shy lady to chip shop.' I'll be the shy lady," she added, just to clarify their roles.

"If you insist on using slang, I believe the term is 'chippy,'" Hal replied as he tucked the notes into his trouser pocket.

Neither of them bothered to say what they both were thinking. The game would allow them to maintain the contact that he needed to be safe.

Hal got out of the car and opened her door for her. He took her hand as he helped her out and he kept it as they walked to the chippy, where he opened the door for her and escorted her to the counter with his hand on her lower back, protectively. He was enjoying the game.

She studied the menu board and drew him close to murmur in his ear what she wanted, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm as she did so. She clung to him as he placed their order and paid the clerk. When they were asked, "Eat in or takeaway?" she just looked at him with a submissive smile.

"We'll eat here." Hal replied without a thought to how close he was to the clerk and how easy it would be to reach over the counter and tear into his throat, because he was really enjoying the game.

They got their drinks right away, and Hal led them to a table apart from the other patrons and pulled out a chair for her. He started to sit across the table from her but she held his hand and protested mildly that he was too far away, so he sat next to her instead. He didn't pay any attention to the fellows three tables away because he was really, really, enjoying the game.

When their food was brought to the table the clerk/waiter gave Hal a bloke-to-bloke look that clearly said, "Well done, you've got her well in hand."

Hal chuckled. "If only he knew," he said.

"I saw that look too," Lena replied. "Apparently the game is going well."

"It will all be ruined when he sees us drive away," Hal said.

"Maybe you should drive," Lena replied as she pulled the key fob from her pocket and quietly handed it to Hal under the table.

"You're kidding."

"You know how to drive a stick, right? What's the worst that can happen?"

"I could wreck your precious car," he said.

"Yeah, but it's just a car. I mean, it's not like you can kill us."

She had a point, Hal realized. And why the hell not drive the car?

Lena kept her hand on his thigh and her eyes on his face as they ate, and she smiled and chatted lightly about the day and the weather and the food. She gave him a kiss on the cheek after he politely wiped a bit of food from the side of her mouth with his napkin, and he didn't even notice the family that had just come into the chippy because he was really, really, really enjoying the game.

"We should play games more often," he murmured as he reached over to tuck a few stray hairs behind her ear that had somehow escaped her ponytail and were slightly blocking his view of her eyes.

She smiled softly at him and said, "Don't get your hopes up," in a sweet, pretending-to-thank-you voice.

"In that case, I should take full advantage while I can," he replied, and he kissed her as he pulled the band from her hair so it would fall freely around her shoulders. He pulled back a few inches from her face and ran a hand through her hair, arranging it to his liking as he smiled a 'wait until I get you home' smile at her.

"There," he said. "I like that better."

"One of these days I'm going to beat the shit right out of you," she replied in a lover's voice, hoping he put down her sudden rapid heartbeat to anger rather than the reaction she had actually had to his kiss.

"I look forward to it," he said with smoldering eyes and a wicked grin, as though she had offered him a tremendous sexual favor.

The server/waiter came by to pick up their empty dishes just then and gave Hal another approving look as he caught his comment. Lena blushed prettily and hid her face on Hal's shoulder. She used her unbound hair to cover the fact that she actually bit him, hard, while she was at it.

Hal jumped and pulled away to look at her.

"What? The curse was getting dark. I was just distracting you," she said with her own wicked smile. "We should go, the place is starting to fill up."

Hal agreed. He could feel the pressure of humanity building around him and the sound of beating hearts was becoming a distraction. He stood up, pulled back her chair, and took her hand to assist her to her feet, as a gentleman does. Three women walked directly behind him to sit at the next table over and Hal felt his fangs start to shift when he smelled blood on one of them.

Lena pulled him into a hug and whispered, "Stay with me, Hal," in his ear and gave him a minute to draw on her strength and calm himself down. When he nodded that he was okay, she locked eyes with him and rested her hand on the side of his face and smiled a warm smile.

"All right lover, let's finish the game," she said, and suddenly Hal was fine again, and took her hand and led her confidently through the chippy, opened the door for her, and escorted her to the passenger side of the Audi before getting behind the wheel.

He even managed to drive away without killing the car or making it shudder as he shifted gears, and he found himself falling a little bit in love with Lena's blue Audi R8 as he realized how much fun it was to drive. _Yes,_ Hal thought, _I'd be happy to play this game every day._

As soon as they got on the road Lena pulled her phone from her pocket and called Georgia Harriman.

"I missed a call from you?"

-pause

"We took a drive, had some lunch. I don't know, hang on." She turned to Hal. "Are we headed back to the house?"

He was surprised by the question. "Shouldn't we be?"

She shrugged. "You're driving."

"In that case, no we are not," he said.

She turned back to the phone. "I don't know when we'll be back. Why does it matter?"

-pause

"Right, but Alex is there. She knows the house better than I do. Ask her. And look, Georgia, I know I usually go full bore on these jobs but I just can't this time. I'm living in the middle of it and I can already tell that it isn't going to work. I need time for coffee and breakfast in the morning and I need my evenings without your people in the house. I'm sure my housemates would feel the same, so we're going to turn this into a 9-to-5 job."

-pause

"I don't give a fuck about the timeline. If you want everyone to live through this thing, you'll do it my way."

-pause

"Anything that needs me can wait until I get back, or until tomorrow."

Lena hung up on Georgia. "That's done, then."

"I'm the one with the problem. Why didn't you say so?" Hal asked.

"That's not how I operate," she replied. "I own the house, so I'm the boss of the renovation. That means I make the decisions, I stand by the decisions, I accept the consequences of the decisions. Whatever may influence me to make a particular decision is nobody's business but mine. That's what it means to be the boss."

"Clearly you've never been a vampire boss," Hal said wryly. "They blame everyone for everything in order to keep themselves from getting staked."

"It takes more than a stake to kill me, and that's a proven fact," Lena replied. "And it sounds to me like vampires make lousy bosses."

"I would have to agree with you," he said. "What's the saying? 'Nice guys finish last.' Very much the truth in my world."

"You're in my world now, Hal. So, where are we going?"

He smiled at her. "I have no idea."

"Cool," she replied as she stretched out in the passenger seat. "One of my favorite places."

As she watched the road ahead and the scenery passing them by, Lena finally allowed herself to relax her guard. Hal was doing okay, finally. The curse was quiet and pale and he was enjoying himself, which meant she didn't have to plot every second of their time or defend them both against the power of the blood curse.

It really was exhausting, dealing with his curse, and his personality quirks, and his relentless pursuit of her as if she were a prize to be won instead of a person trying her best to treat him decently. Pity she couldn't just walk into a café, buy a meal, and eat it like a normal person. Even the simplest things become difficult with a vampire added to the mix, and a vampire lady's man who has to flaunt his smooth moves just added one more complication to the pile of mess she was already dealing with.

True, she had used that aspect of his character to control him while they were in the chippy, but she hadn't expected him to stay and eat, or for the place to fill up so quickly. And of course he had to take advantage of their required closeness to make a move on her, and of course he was an even better kisser now than when he was human, damn it, which meant that part of her enjoyed it so she was mad at herself as well as him.

Lena knew that her anger just made it easier for the damned curse to dig into her, and she was tired of battling her own emotions as well as dealing with a perpetually hungry vampire and a curse that wanted to claim her soul. _Well, shit,_ she thought. _No wonder I enjoy living alone._

Hal drove for a while, made his way onto smaller and less-traveled roads, and finally stopped alongside a reservoir. Lena had kept up with the signs along the way and knew that he had taken them back to the Brecon Beacons. They got out for a stretch and a look at the view out over the water.

Finally Hal said, "Thank you for getting me out of the house today. And for being decent to me again. I don't know why you bother," he added with a self-conscious smile.

"It is a challenge at times," she replied wryly. "However, things get out of hand quickly when I stop being decent."

"What happens when things get out of hand?" he asked. "Something more than you tying up and punching the vampire who annoys you?"

She was quiet for a moment. "People die," she said. "It is within my job description, but it is a practice that I avoid for the most part."

She looked back at the car. "I don't suppose you know how to get back to Barry from here?"

"I thought I might turn around and drive in the opposite direction from the one we had been going."

"Smartass."

They were reaching for the car doors when a brown van full of people drove by. Lena noticed immediately that there were no souls in the van. She looked at Hal over the roof of the Audi.

"Vampires," he said.

"Friends of yours?"

He shook his head as he replied, "I'm sure Hetty has a price on my head."

"It's fine. They'll keep going," she said. They heard the squeal of brakes and the sound of a vehicle turning around. "Or not," she added.

"You don't happen to have any stakes in your car?" Hal asked as he moved to meet her in front of the car.

"I don't use them. Here, take this," she said as she pulled an impossible knife with a 12-inch blade from the pocket of her jeans. "Hang on—" she pulled a sheath from her other pocket and sheathed the knife blade before handing it to him. "Careful, you could put your eye out with that thing."

He took the knife casually as the van pulled up and eight scruffy-looking vampires piled out carrying stakes, knives, and clubs. Lena noticed that Hal had subtly changed; he had become cool, commanding, dangerous again. She was okay with that.

"Lord Hal Yorke, I thought I recognized you," said one of the group.

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't say the same," Hal replied. He perused the questionable-looking man and added, "To be honest, I'm not sorry. Have we met?"

"Not formally, but I knew Fergus, and I've been in the mix when you two were—hunting." the vampire smirked at him.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Hal ignored the reference to his past and got straight to the point.

"You can give us your head," the vampire said. "It's worth its weight in gold."

"I'm afraid I shall have to decline," Hal replied. "My head has already been claimed by my companion. In fact, I think she considers me entirely her property." He gave Lena a cool smile.

"And yet you act as though I belong to you, my lord," she replied.

"So, who's the bird?" one of the other vampires asked as he leered at Lena. "More importantly, who gets her when we're done with you?"

She and Hal shared an arch look at the irony of those questions before Hal replied, "I'll let her introduce herself."

She looked the ramshackle group of vampires over briefly before turning to Hal. "There's only eight of them. Do you want to just wait in the car? No reason for us both to get dusty."

"Actually, I need to piss," he said. "Do you mind?" He nodded his head toward the far side of the car.

"Go right ahead," she said as she took a step toward the vampires. They shifted uneasily and looked very confused by the offhand attitude Lena and Hal displayed toward their threat.

"Hey, do you want to bet on who finishes first?" she called over her shoulder to Hal.

He chuckled. "No thank you, I've already lost one wager to you this week," he said as he set the knife on the car and turned his back on the group dismissively, "and this may take a minute."

"Oh come on. Just for fun then," she teased as she watched the vampires grasp their weapons tightly and edge toward her.

"Very well, if you insist," Hal said as he unzipped his trousers.

Lena saw the vampires tense up and prepare to attack her. She held up a hand to still them, then put a finger to her lips and cocked her head, clearly listening for a particular noise. She heard the sound of liquid hitting the ground and smiled.

"There it is," she said as her swords materialized in her hands, and she took two quick pirouettes through the group. The vampires were gone. She shook and brushed their dust from her clothes, then walked back toward the car. "I'm already shaking off," she called to Hal. "How about you?"

"Just now," he replied, and she heard the sound of him zipping up his trousers again.

He came around the car and looked at the piles of dust and clothes. "You never did introduce yourself," he said.

"They didn't ask politely," she replied as she leaned over to shake the dead vampires out of her hair.

He watched her, bemused. She hadn't even blinked at killing eight vampires and she had done it effortlessly. It was taking longer to clean herself up than the battle itself had lasted. She pulled a hair band from her pocket and pulled her hair back in a ponytail.

"You have a little something—" Hal said, brushing his cheek to signify where she had dust on her face. She looked for a clean part of her shirt to wipe her face with. "Here," he said as he handed her a neatly folded handkerchief. "A gentleman is always prepared."

"Thanks," she said. "I'll wash it before I give it back."

He handed her the knife she had loaned him. She stuck it in her pocket where it disappeared as always, but he couldn't help watching, like the audience at a magic show hoping to catch on to the trick.

"Let's take a quick look and see what we can learn about these jokers," she said as she began picking up clothes and going through pockets. Hal investigated the van, where he found a photograph taken of an old portrait of himself, along with a written description and notice of the value Hetty had placed on him: 10 pounds of gold for proof of his demise.

She threw the clothes into the van and showed him another copy of the photo and notice she had found in the pocket of someone's filthy trousers. "Do we leave this here?" she asked, nodding toward the van and contents. "I could drop it in the lake, but that's littering."

"No reason not to leave it," Hal said. "There's nothing connecting it to us. Let's take their weapons to Tom. Save him the trouble of making a few stakes."

"I agree," Lena said, and she got an empty duffel bag from the van. As they put the stakes and knives in the bag, she asked, "You driving?"

"Unless you want to find your way out of here," he said with a note of challenge in his voice.

"Don't push it, Fangboy. I can carry you and the car if I need to, but you wouldn't enjoy the flight."

He stared at her for a moment and waited for a sign that she was joking. She gave no such sign. He shook his head, got into the driver's seat, and started the Audi as she brushed herself down one last time before joining him.

"You handled that crowd very quickly," Hal said as he drove. "Not much of a challenge?"

"Hardly," she replied. "I've killed legions of vampires."

"Were you involved in the Seraphin war?"

"My cousin Ammon and I ended the Seraphin war."

"Ah. So that was you," Hal said calmly. "You suggested otherwise when we first met."

"I know," she said, offering no explanation.

Lena seemed to be distancing herself from the conversation, but she had already confirmed his suspicions. He remembered the great grey-winged creatures that had swept through the ranks of his armies and destroyed scores of vampires and their human sympathizers with each pass. It had been a massacre. He had barely escaped with his life. He had ridden his horse until it gave way under him, and then had scrambled through the woods like an animal until he had discovered a small cave hidden behind a pile of brush and fallen trees. He had crawled inside and collapsed.

"I'm still surprised that I lived through the experience," he mused.

"You nearly didn't," she replied grimly. "I can't believe you actually fell asleep in that cave."

He stiffened as he realized what her words meant. "I was exhausted," he said, as he carefully watched the road and not her.

"I had a stake to your heart and you didn't even notice." She closed her eyes against the memory. "Then they pulled me away."

"Who pulled you away?"

"The only ones who dared to touch me," she said, again offering no explanation.

"The ones who made you promise not to kill me?" he said. "The ones who were protecting you from yourself?"

"Yes."

"You can kill legions of vampires and people without any qualms, but killing me would have damaged your soul? What did I do to you, that you could hate me so much more than all of the monsters you have destroyed?"

He glanced at her and saw a dismissive look cross her face. She shook her head as she replied, "I won't discuss that with you."

They drove in silence for a bit. Hal recalled her words to him on the night she moved into Honolulu Heights. '-no sanctuary on earth for you any longer,' she had said. He was certain now that she had not been exaggerating, and the thought of her hunting him down was terrifying.

Lena sighed. "I just wish Hetty was as easy to find."

"You're looking for her?"

"Since I learned that she escaped the blast at Stoker's," she said. "I haven't been personally, but I've got people trying to find her. No luck though, she's gone to ground."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I wasn't sure where your loyalties would be," she replied.

"My loyalties are firmly with my own survival, and now that we have proof of Hetty's determination to see me dead, that means my loyalties lie with you, my lady," Hal said. "Mr. Snow had an extensive network of escape routes and hide-outs. It has been a long time since I was privy to that information, but I can share with you what I know."

"I'll get together a conference call and you can talk to the team directly," she said.

Hal timed the trip so they returned to Honolulu Heights at 5:30, well after the construction crew had vacated the premises. Tom was just home from the hotel and Alex was catching him up on the day's news when Hal and Lena walked in.

"Hello Tom," Hal said as he set the duffel bag down on the sectional. "We brought you a gift."

Tom sniffed the air and looked at Lena. "Vampires!" he said, and he immediately opened the bag and began looking through the stakes and knives. He looked quizzically at Hal, who handed him the notice of the price Hetty had placed on his head.

Tom read the notice with Alex reading over his shoulder. "Ten pounds of gold!" she exclaimed. "Hal, you're worth a lot more dead than you are sort-of alive."

"Don't even joke about that," Lena said grimly. Alex looked at her and saw that she was serious. Lena was required to protect Hal from any threat, and she had heard Alex threaten to stake him already.

"What happened?" Tom asked.

"A rather rag-tag group of would-be assassins tried to kill us," Hal replied. "Clearly they were unsuccessful."

"There were only eight of them, hardly worth bothering with," Lena added. "I do need to shower, though. I don't like being covered with dead vampires."

"You killed eight vampires at once?" Alex asked.

"I didn't kill any of them," Hal replied. "I was otherwise occupied."

"He needed to pee," Lena explained.

"You left her to deal with a bunch of vampires by herself so you could powder your nose?" Alex was outraged.

"What good is having a bodyguard if I can't make use of her?" Hal replied with a smile.

"Alex, you should have seen it. These guys all piled out of a van trying to be tough and Hal just looked them over and turned his back and walked away like they were nothing." Lena chuckled. "It was classic."

"I assumed, rightfully so, that you didn't need my help," Hal replied. "You dispatched them before I had finished 'powdering my nose.' Good thing I didn't take you up on your wager."

Tom was concerned by the description of the battle. "You didn't have no weapons? You turned your back on them? What if she had missed one?" he asked Hal.

Hal looked at him for a moment before replying. "I've seen her in battle, Tom. She doesn't miss." He continued, "I think you should keep some stakes at the hotel. We can't be certain when or where we may be attacked, but we can be assured that more vampires are coming."

"Great," Alex said. "So now what?"

"Shower. Supper. Work on the studio." Lena said as she headed upstairs.

Tom watched her go, then quietly asked Hal, "How good is she?"

"She took about two seconds, Tom. You have no idea how good she is," Hal replied before following her upstairs.

# # #

Lena and Hal planned to spend their days working on the studio renovation or hanging out in their rooms while the construction crew was on site. Hal quickly learned the joy of using the reciprocating saw, a wicked tool with a blade that would cut through wood and metal easily, and could probably cut through bone if the need arose. However, as Lena was determined to keep them firmly in the camp of bloodless destruction, Hal filed that bit of information away for further consideration at a more appropriate time.

He took over the job of removing studs from the walls so Lena could replace them, after which she laid out the wiring schematic and they began wiring the room. Lena studied an electrician's manual to make sure she had the correct processes, as she had only done wiring in the U.S. Apparently there were a few differences between countries in terminology, color-coding of the wires, and circuitry. Hal did what he was told, and didn't mind it, which was a change for him. However, Lena had a way of making it feel like they were working together as equals and she left him alone to finish a job once he had started.

The plan went well until the afternoon of the second day, when Lena got a phone call from Georgia. Hal sensed a change in her instantly and followed her as she walked to the window. They saw Georgia, at the far end of the garden, with a knife being held to her throat. Another vampire.

"Give him the phone," Lena said.

They saw Georgia give her phone to the vampire and heard his voice. "I'll trade your friend here for the vampire you're keeping company with. Bring him to me or she dies."

"Look dickwad, you've got a knife pointed at a woman with Seraphin blood. You cut her, you die. I'll give you until I get there to let her go safely." Lena cut off the call and handed her phone to Hal. "Wait here."

She dove head-first out the window and flew like an eagle after its prey; her wings guided her directly toward the vampire, who shoved Georgia aside and turned as if to run. He didn't make his first step. Lena's swords quartered him before she had landed.

"Get to the house," Lena ordered Georgia as a crowd of vampires poured into the garden, drawn by the cry of terror their cohort had unleashed. They had been planning to ambush Hal and Lena, but when they saw what was waiting for them they stumbled over themselves to get away. They were too late; she moved more quickly than human eyes could track, and Hal could barely make it out himself.

In the end she chased one down the walk a few steps, caught him by his shirt collar, and flew him up to the second-story window where Hal was waiting.

"He is protected," she said, pointing at Hal. "This house is protected. Anyone who lives here or comes here is protected. Deliver the message."

She threw the vampire carelessly across the garden, where it splatted against the brick wall and dropped to the ground. Lena set down on the windowsill and accepted Hal's hand to help her step back into the room. They watched the lone vampire survivor pick himself up and stagger away.

"I should check on Georgia," Lena said. "Shit, I'm covered in vampires again."

"And the water is temporarily cut off so you can't shower, but I believe we have a bucket or two of wash water in the kitchen, just in case," Hal replied. "I wouldn't mind a cup of tea and a sandwich, while we're at it."

They went to the kitchen together as members of the construction crew stared, agape, at Lena as she passed. Apparently she had had an audience for her scuffle with the vampires. Georgia was at the kitchen table, so Lena went to speak to her while Hal put the kettle on.

"How are you?" Lena asked.

"I'm fine, thank you," Georgia answered. Her eyes flashed angrily. "I should have made him bite me, that bastard. I forgot I could kill him with my blood." Lena thought maybe she was beginning to rub off on the normally calm and professional Georgia Harriman, and she was okay with that.

"Tea?" Hal asked Georgia from across the room.

"Yes, thank you Hal," Georgia replied, and just like that things were back to normal, because tea takes care of everything. Lena poured some water in the kitchen sink and did a quick wash-up of her face and arms while the tea was brewing. Hal made sandwiches. Georgia reviewed the day's progress and the plans for tomorrow. They ate and chatted like civilized people, Georgia because she was one and Hal and Lena because they chose to be, for the moment anyway.


	16. Chapter 16 Sweeter than Death

Lena was nailing the corner of a piece of plasterboard in place when she blew out the end of her thumb. Georgia's crew had left for the day but Hal and Lena had planned to continue working until Tom and Alex got home from the hotel, after which they would stop to fix supper together.

She saw Hal in her peripheral vision, which wasn't unusual because Hal was always close. But Hal had pulled his shirt off to shake the dust out of it. The unexpected sight of his sculpted muscles and pert little nipples fried her brain for a moment and she slammed the hammer onto her thumb so hard that it split thumbnail, skin, and leather, spewing blood and tissue onto the plasterboard.

"Holy Fuck!" She dropped the hammer and grabbed her busted thumb, wrapped it in the tail of her long-sleeved shirt and squeezed it to stop the blood flow.

Hal drew in, unable to resist the intoxicating scent of her blood. He could almost taste the microscopic bits of it floating in the air. He felt his fangs unsheathe and saw his vision shift. He _had _to have her blood.

Lena saw his black eyes and darkened curse and planted a boot in his gut with a kick that sent him across the room. He slammed into the wall and slumped to the floor, stunned. She pulled off her long-sleeved shirt and, with her thumb still wrapped in it, used the fabric to wipe down her hammer and scrub her blood from the plasterboard. She hadn't planned on revealing her "I AM SHERLOCKED" t-shirt, but the fact that she was secretly a Cumberbabe was no longer important.

Hal was moving again and the curse was deep red and thick around him. He pulled himself upright against the far wall and stared at her, his vision clear but his fangs still present.

"Stay where you are, Hal. Stay there, don't come back here, don't make me hurt you again." She spoke frantically, almost yelling to make sure he heard her over whatever chaos was happening in his head. She wrenched the plasterboard off the wall, broke it in half and threw it out the window into the bin below.

"Stay there Hal, just give me a minute, just stay there, it isn't safe back here. Please, God, please just stay there!" She kept talking to Hal and praying, her words a jumble of desperation as she checked the wall for signs of blood splatter and pulled another piece of plasterboard off just to be sure. She used her shirt to scrub the floor all around where she had been standing and finally she threw her shirt and gloves out the window into the bin. Her thumb was healed but bloody. She grabbed Hal's shirt off the floor and used it as a washcloth, using her saliva to soften the dried blood on her thumb so she could wipe it off with his shirt.

He couldn't help staring at her, his eyes locked on the blood. When she sucked her bloody thumb his mouth mimicked the action. He could feel himself drooling. He watched as each item went sailing out the window, and he reckoned where it had landed and how hard it would be to make that leap himself.

She moved away from the window toward him, but stopped after a few steps. She waited and watched for him to show her what he needed. He was afraid to open his mouth and allow any air across his taste buds. She could tell by the subtle curve of his lips that his fangs were out and decided that she wouldn't ask him to speak. She watched his eyes.

He looked her up and down and stopped on her boots. She followed his look and saw a few drops of blood on her new work boots. They were out the window in a second. His gaze moved up her legs and stopped again. She saw a spot of blood on one thigh, where she had held her thumb against her leg. Her jeans went out the window. He looked her over carefully once more and shook his head. No more blood.

Lena looked down at herself. Thank god she liked oversized t-shirts and bothered to put on matching socks today!

Alex appeared in the doorway to announce that she and Tom were home from work. She broke off mid-sentence as she saw Hal and Lena's locked eyes and realized that something was very wrong. She disappeared, yelling for Tom. He came through the front door and leaped up the stairs; he stopped at the door to the studio when Lena held up her hand.

"I smell blood," he said. "Not human. Yours?"

She nodded without taking her eyes off of Hal. "I busted my thumb. Blood spatter. Hurt like a mother. We are figuring out where it is so I can clean it up."

Tom looked at the two tense figures standing nearly across the room from each other and decided that Lena was understating the truth by a lot. He saw her boot print on Hal's stomach. He saw that Hal was fighting to control himself. He saw that Lena was only half-dressed. He blushed.

"I threw the bloody clothes and plasterboard into the bin, Tom. Stay away from it until I can get it hauled off."

"What do we do now?" Tom asked as he watched Hal carefully. "Shouldn't you tie him up or put him in the cellar or some'at?"

Hal's panicked expression told Tom that was a bad idea. If he was taken away from her, locked up alone with the raging chaos of his hunger…Hal shook his head emphatically. He would tear through the walls to get to her. He would go mad.

"No Tom, he stays with me," Lena said quietly. "My presence may be the only thing keeping him sane." She kept her focus on Hal but in her periphery she saw the shock on Tom and Alex's faces. "I don't know that, but I've been told it's possible for a vampire to go insane from the craving for Seraphin Nepos blood."

Lena watched for Hal's affirmation as she said, "I think I need to scrub the floor. Hot water, heavy-duty cleanser, bleach." Hal nodded his agreement.

"Got it," Tom said, and he was gone.

"Alex, could you bring me a pair of work trousers or sweats to put on? Nothing good. I'll be throwing them away. Third drawer down in the bureau."

Alex was gone.

"I don't want to tie you up," Lena said to the vampire across the room. "I told myself I wouldn't do that to you again. Do I need to tie you up?"

Hal slowly shook his head.

"Can I come closer to you without putting you at risk?"

Hal shook his head again.

"Fuck! Hal, I'm so sorry to put you through this," she said as Alex appeared with a pair of trousers. She pulled on the trousers as Alex moved back to the doorway.

"I'll help Tom," she said, and she disappeared again.

"Is it just the floor?"

Hal shook his head.

"Oh shit, of course, the hammer!"

He nodded.

Alex rent-a-ghosted back with a bucket of washing up water, scrub brush, and marigolds. Lena took the bucket and brush but refused the marigolds. She wanted her hands in the bleach, just in case there were any flecks of blood on them. She did everything without turning away from Hal. He watched her like a predator watches its prey, waiting for the moment of carelessness that would allow him to strike. He watched her like a drowning man clutching the end of a lifeline watches the sailor responsible for hauling him to safety.

"Thank you, Alex. Can you throw that hammer in the bin?"

"But it's practically new!" the ghost protested.

"Alex, it's just a hammer. It isn't more important than Hal or Tom," Lena said as she knelt to scrub the floor. Tom returned to the doorway and Alex joined him to watch as Lena meticulously scrubbed the floor for several feet in all directions from her accident. She never turned her back on Hal and she never lost sight of him.

When she was finished, Lena took the bucket and scrub brush and threw them out the window into the bin below. Her trousers were wet with bleach water from the knees down. She dried her hands on her thighs and threw the trousers out, and her socks as well, just to be safe. She looked at Hal. He was less tense.

"Is the room safe?"

He breathed in carefully and took a couple of steps forward as he did. "The room is safe," he said quietly, "but you are not."

She could see the curse coiled around him, still darker than it had ever been, pulsing in time to her own heartbeat, and she knew they were in deep shit.

"One thing at a time," she said. "Just keep your distance, okay Hal?"

He nodded and backed slowly to the far wall, but kept his gaze on her.

"I need my phone and pants. I mean, trousers, jeans, whatever the fuck!" Lena snapped.

Alex brought her phone and clean jeans. Lena called the refuse company to request immediate pickup of the bin; she held the phone on her shoulder while getting into her jeans. She didn't care who in the building saw her super unsexy blue cotton underpants in the process.

"I need immediate haul-away of a construction waste bin."

-pause

"Yes, I know it is after hours, but it contains material that is hazardous to my housemates, so it must be removed immediately."

-pause

"I will be happy to pay extra for the trouble. Double the standard rate. Can't you call a driver in?"

-pause

"Tell the driver I have 100 quid waiting as a tip. Or more. I don't care, but the bin has to go immediately."

-pause

"So what I'm hearing you say is, the only way that bin is going to leave this property tonight is if I move it myself?"

-pause

"Very well then, I will be happy to return your bin to you. Where do you want me to drop it, on your office or on your home?"

-pause

"I didn't say 'at' I said 'on' because if I have to do this myself I promise you that is exactly what will happen."

-pause

"Within the hour? Excellent. And you will of course be bringing a replacement bin? Thank you."

Lena stuck her phone in her jeans pocket and moved carefully to the open window. Hal followed her along the far wall and moved to the window at the other end of the room. The new window had been set in the frame already, and it was closed. Lena wanted it kept that way.

"I'm going to pull the cover over the bin, just to be safe." She looked at Hal. "Don't move." He nodded.

She jumped out of the second-story window and landed easily on rim of the bin. She checked to see that Hal was still at the far window, hopped off the bin, and dropped another six feet to the ground. She turned immediately to check Hal again, after which she pulled the tarpaulin cover over the bin and tied it in place. She stood back and looked up at the window she had jumped from. Tom and Alex stood there watching her.

"Make a hole, people," she called as she got a running start, jumped onto the rim of the bin and from there back through the window. She landed in a squat and stood quickly to regain eye contact with Hal. He had taken several steps toward her, but was able to back away when they reconnected.

"We need to get away from the bin and into a space where we can deal with this," she said, moving her hand in front of him to signify the curse. He nodded.

Lena glanced at Tom and Alex. "Leave us. Please. You can't be in the middle of this." They tried to argue, but Lena and Hal ignored them, so they started downstairs slowly, watching the pair as they went.

She moved to the door of the studio; he moved in tandem. She backed into the hallway; he followed. She kept one hand on the wall to guide her as she backed down the hall, past the nearly-complete new bathroom, past her own room, to his room. She halted at the open door. He stopped when she did and waited about ten feet away. She stepped through the door and out of his line of sight. Before she had crossed the room and turned around he was through the door and had shut it behind him. They stood facing each other again.

Out of nowhere Hal began softly speaking German, not just speaking but reciting, practically singing the last few stanzas of "Die Lorelei", a folk song based on the poem by Heinrich Heine. It was one of Lena's favorites, the legend of the beautiful golden-haired maiden who sits high on the rocks and combs her hair while singing, unaware that her song enthralls the boatman below and draws him to his death on the rocks.

She listened to it for a different reason now, as she realized that Hal was telling her what had happened to him in the only way he could through the chaos in his mind. Her blood was singing to him, enthralling him, drawing him to her with a power he couldn't resist. He would kill himself with it if she couldn't find a way to break the spell.

_Well, fuck me,_ she thought. _I'm not even blonde and I can't sing that well. And when I was blonde, he sure wasn't enthralled. Running off with my best horse…NO! I can't think like that. The last thing Hal needs is Bitter Lena feeling sorry for herself. What he needs is Nastusia._

And there it was, the answer sprung fully-formed from her mind like Athena from the forehead of Zeus. And she didn't like it any better than Zeus had enjoyed getting his head split open by Hephaestus when Athena was born. Lena wasn't equipped to draw off the curse, she had already proven that when she first met Hal at Honolulu Heights. If she got close to Hal, this curse would chew her up and spit her out while he died drinking her blood.

Only a Nephilim of power and clarity could subdue the hunger for Nephilim blood. Hal needed a Nephilim with no dark shadows in her soul, no bitterness in her heart, no revenge on her mind.

She would have to recall Nastusia, the Polish girl mad for her Henry; she would have to remember what it meant to love him, truly and deeply love him, without reservation or regret, and when this mess was over and Hal was back to himself, the vampire behind his eyes would break her heart again.

"I know what to do, Hal, but you have to trust me. Can you trust me?"

He nodded.

"Turn around and close your eyes. You can't see this, it won't work if you do."

He looked puzzled, but he slowly turned around and closed his eyes. She could see him tense up as they broke eye contact and he felt the loss of their connection.

She took a step forward and reached out for him, her Henry, her love, with the smile like sunshine on her skin and strong hands that trembled when he touched her. She took another step toward him, remembering his first clumsy kiss and the flowers he picked and wove into a garland for her long blonde hair because beautiful ladies should always have flowers in their hair. Another step and her hands rested on his back, slid up and along his shoulders, gently massaged his tense muscles as she did after they had worked together in the stables.

"Don't open your eyes," she whispered with her own eyes closed. She knew that Hal would see Nastusia if he looked at her now. She was seeing Henry in her mind as she felt the curse swarming over her body.

She slid her arms around his chest and nestled against him, resting her head against the back of his neck. She allowed a thousand happy images to flow through her, moments of quiet joy and thundering ecstasy, of work and sweat and swimming naked in the lake; of snow angels and sword fights with icicles; of licking wine from his skin and drinking it from his navel after she had sloshed it out of her glass, and of him spilling his on purpose so he could do the same to her.

She opened her eyes. A red haze hung over them both. She closed her eyes again. She could feel the curse of her own blood returning to her.

Henry brushing her hair and laughing at her impatience with it, chiding her for not appreciating its beauty; telling her about his mothers and the misery in which he was raised; telling her that he learned to brush a woman's hair because it gave him time with each of them, the child looking for just one mother to call his own.

Henry sleeping next to her, his hair a wild mess around his peaceful face; sleeping with a hand on her breast as if he couldn't bear to be without her for a moment; sleeping as she dove into the beauty of his body with her eyes and hands and memorized every angle and curve, until she finally woke him with her caresses because she couldn't bear to be without him for a moment longer.

Henry fierce and wild, beating down three stable hands who had called her a whore for loving him; who threw them at her feet and forced them to beg her forgiveness; who carried her into the haymow, laughing in his arms, and locked them in until they were exhausted and itchy and he decided that she had rewarded him adequately for being so gallant.

"You're crying."

She heard Hal whisper and opened her eyes. The red haze was gone. She felt heavy with blood and grief.

"Hal, how do you feel?" She realized that his body was relaxed against her. His hands rested on hers, their fingers entwined. He was safe again.

"Back to normal. Better than normal. Much like the first time, when you drew the curse from me. Can I open my eyes yet?"

She resumed her current appearance as she pulled away from him. "Yes, of course," she said, wiping her tears on her t-shirt as she stepped back.

He turned and looked at her, worried; he wanted to know what had upset her. "Are you hurt? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?"

"No, I'm fine, I just—"she turned toward the door. "It takes a toll, that's all. If you're sure you're okay I'm going to my room. I need to finish dealing with this on my own."

"Of course. Thank you." He watched her go. She didn't look at him again.

Hal stood for a moment trying to recall exactly what had happened. He remembered her touch; he knew that she had hugged him from behind, which made sense as it kept her away from his fangs. He had felt the curse leaving him; he knew when he was no longer drowning in a screaming red chaos of blood. Lena had taken it into herself. What did she mean, finish dealing with it? What would she have to do?

He pulled on a shirt and left his room so he could to ask her. Alex was waiting in the hall. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yes I am, surprisingly okay," he replied. "Lena was able to safely draw off the curse. She's gone to her room; I thought I would check on her. She didn't look well."

"I'll come with you," Alex said as she fell into step behind him.

Hal sensed a shift in the air that told him Lena had taken the bullet train to somewhere, but he opened the door to her room and looked, just in case. It was empty.

"She's gone," he said, acknowledging what he had expected to see.

"What, so she just took off? What if you still needed her?"

"She knows that I'll be alright for a while, Alex. She very likely decided to take advantage of the opportunity to have a little time to herself. She is used to living alone, so I'm sure things have been claustrophobic for her here."

"So, what's on with you, then?" Alex asked.

"Food, I think. Yes, food sounds very good. Let's see what Tom has managed to not eat yet, shall we?" Hal and Alex went downstairs, where the three housemates had an evening much like the old days, except that there was a hole in the room where Lena should have been.

# # #

Lena went home, to her farm, to the white oak tree in the woods behind the house, the one that she had planted in 1861 when she claimed the place as her own. She curled up at its base and held on as spasms tore through her and she retched blood until she was exhausted.

She rested until she felt strong enough to move again, after which she walked among her flowers and noted how Ruby was carefully tending them. She picked a few and absently wove them into a garland for her hair as she cried out the last of her grief over the loss, once again, of her Henry.

Finally she reset the armor plating around her heart and steeled herself for her return to the vampire's lair, her new home, her future, and she returned to Honolulu Heights. The only signs of her visit were some drying blood in the woods and a garland of flowers on the garden path.

# # #

It was after midnight when Hal felt Lena return to her room. He wasn't waiting up for her, he was just reading because he couldn't sleep. The fact that he was still fully dressed and hadn't attempted to go to bed yet was a minor detail. He thought he would just check on her, since he was still up.

Her door was ajar. He knocked quietly.

"Come in, Hal," she replied.

He opened the door but stayed in the doorway and leaned slightly against the frame, being casual and not worried about her. She seemed calm, but tired. He shouldn't have disturbed her.

"I went home," she said, answering the question he was unwilling to ask. "I went back to my home, to deal with the curse in private."

"I don't know what that means," he said. "In what way do you deal with a curse when you draw it from someone else?"

"Depends on the curse." She dropped into the boudoir chair in the corner and waved him into the room. He entered, pulled out the desk chair and sat down.

"When I drew off my friend's werewolf curse my hair went crazy and I craved raw chicken," she chuckled. "We joked about the two of us being the double date from hell that night. I kind of shook it off, like a dog shaking water out of its fur. The extra hair went flying everywhere and I ate a whole roast chicken and it was over. I didn't try to take it all, though, just enough to keep her from running loose."

"The vampire curse is based on the need for blood, so when I draw it off I end up with a belly full of blood. I have to go off in a corner and throw up until it is out of my system." She looked at him. "Pretty gross. Well, from my point of view, anyway," she said the slight twist of a smile.

Hal smiled back at her. Vampire humor. She must be feeling okay.

She continued, "I'm such a weird mix of spiritual and corporeal. All humans are, but me more so than most because of my angel heritage. Spiritual things become tangible with me."

"Hence the wings and weapons," he said to indicate his understanding of the concept she was trying to explain.

"Exactly. Blessings and curses are tangible things to me too, as are angels and demons. They have substance."

Hal frowned as an unappealing thought crossed his mind. "You can see the vampire curse on me."

"Yes."

"When you touch me, do I feel like blood to you?"

"No, thank god, because that would be a whole nother level of weird!" She laughed. "No, I don't see or feel it as literal blood because it isn't. It's a need for blood, and a sense of hunger and …intractability? Relentlessness? Does that make sense?"

"It makes perfect sense. That is what it feels like to me as well," Hal said, surprised at how well she understood the vampire. "It is much less intractable and relentless since you came."

"I can tell," she said. "Today was a setback, but I think, I hope, that we've dealt with it. You're not staring at my neck and drooling, so that's a good sign."

"It isn't polite to drool," he responded. "I do try to be a gentleman."

"Honestly though, how are you? Anything going on?" She studied him carefully. "I can't see that there is." The curse lay quietly on him, a soft blush again.

"Nothing going on that your presence doesn't usually cause, my lady." Hal arched an eyebrow at her as he shifted to his usual flirtatious banter. He was pleased to see her smile in response.

"This whole thing is your fault, Hal, you know that?" she chided him gently.

"How is your clumsiness with a hammer in any way my fault?"

"I was doing fine until you flashed your nips at me. Seriously Hal, you should warn a gal before you whip those things out," she said with a mischievous grin. "They're one hell of a distraction."

It took Hal a moment to catch up with what she was saying, as the term 'nips' wasn't part of his vocabulary. He looked pleased with himself as he caught her meaning and she laughed lightly to see it.

"The morning will tell us for sure if we're safe. I'd like to get some sleep in the meantime." She stood up, signaling that it was time for him to leave. He rose from his chair but hesitated.

"I'd feel better if you locked me in for the night," he said. "I will sleep better, knowing that I can't get to you." He gave her a wry smile. "Never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?"

She just smiled and shook her head as she followed him to his room. She sealed him in and returned to her own room, and to the sounds of him undressing and getting into bed just across the wall. She did the same and they lay quietly, separated by a few inches of wood and plaster.

"Good night, Hal," she whispered.

"Good night, Lena," he replied.

They fell asleep facing each other.


	17. Chapter 17 The Ripple Effect

Lena awoke to the sound of Hal counting.

"189…190…191…192…"

He was doing some kind of exercise in his room. She hopped out of bed and went to his door to see what was up. As she touched it, she heard him call to her with panic in his voice.

"Stop! Don't open it!" And suddenly he was there, against the door. She heard him rest his head on it and inhale deeply. He was drawing in her scent.

"What's up?" she asked, knowing full well the answer.

"I seem to have regressed," he replied.

"How much?"

"I considered tearing through the wall to get to you while you slept."

"But you didn't."

"I suspected that the noise would alert you to my plan, thereby rendering it ineffective," he said. "I also feared that a hole in the wall would lead to another round of extensive renovation that my nerves simply cannot handle at this point."

"Both excellent and logical thoughts," she said. "So you are thinking clearly, which means you are doing better than you were last night."

"Yes," he said. "I want your blood."

"You can't have it."

"Just a sip would do, I assure you."

"Not happening."

Tom and Alex appeared in the hall, drawn by the conversation and by their concern for their friends.

"Good morning Tom," Hal through the door.

"Mornin' Hal. How ya feelin'?"

"A bit thirsty, Tom. I don't suppose you can hand me a glass of Lena's blood? A small glass will do. A dram. A sip."

"Sorry mate, I don't think she'd like me tryin' that," Tom replied.

"Alex?"

"Fuck off, Mr. Creepy," she replied.

"Ah. It seems we are at an impasse," Hal said.

"I'll have to draw off the curse again," Lena said. "Stand back so I can open the door."

"I had hoped I wouldn't have to put you through that again," Hal said sadly, "and I'm not sure that I won't leap at you as soon as the door opens."

"We'll give it a minute, then. Do you have a shirt on? Your pert little nipples started this whole mess, so I'd appreciate it if you put a shirt on before I come in."

"Just a moment," Hal said, and he forced himself two steps away from the door and got his shirt off the bed and put it on. He returned to the door and leaned against it, his hands splayed along its surface, searching for her through the wood.

Lena stood against the door, eyes closed, humming "We are the Champions" by Queen. She was convincing herself not to give up on this whole endeavor, not to open the door and be just a bit careless, a second too slow, and give Hal the chance to have the blood he so desperately wanted. Nobody would know the difference; nobody would blame her. It would be easy, and she would have her life back. All she had to do was let him die. She sighed. The problem was, she didn't actually want him dead. _When did that happen?! _

"Well, shit," she said more to herself than anyone else. "I'm coming in."

She opened the door and saw him, wild-eyed and tense, the curse dark again and beating in time with her heart. He held out his arm like a traffic cop at a crosswalk, warning her to stop. She didn't stop.

Lena held out her own arm, palm toward his, and walked slowly forward. She hoped to make contact before he turned on her. Hal took a step back and threw out his other arm as if he were trying to push her away. She raised her other arm to match his. Good. More contact area.

Tom and Alex watched them from the doorway. Lena knew that there was no privacy here, no chance to recall Nastusia. She would have to do this the hard way and hope they all lived through it.

Hal's eyes went black and his nostrils flared as he prepared to leap at her, but she had reached his hands with her own and she twined her fingers through his, locked them together, and drew off the curse as he wrestled to free himself from her grasp.

She pushed him back against the wall and kept him at arms' length as the vampire hissed and howled at her, but she could see the curse moving off of him and she felt herself getting heavy with it again. She didn't want to hurt him like she had when the curse had first attacked her, the kiss from hell in the chair when they first met. She didn't feel the hunger overpowering her. It was much weaker today. She could manage it.

Lena watched his eyes and waited for them to become human again. "Come on, Hal, come back to me," she said. "I know you're in there. Come on, man, we can do this, we got this, come back to me, man, come back to me." She spoke the words as a litany, to give him something to reach for, and he did. His eyes cleared and his tension eased and finally he was back to normal, which for Hal meant that the curse was a pale quiet blush over him.

He smiled at her sadly. "Thank you."

"You have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen on a man," she replied. "Now excuse me while I go puke some blood."

She walked out of his room and went to the bathroom to throw up. She didn't want to waste the energy on traveling elsewhere. She finished quickly and flushed and scrubbed the toilet, wiped down the floor just in case, washed her face and brushed her teeth, and returned to Hal's room. Alex was already there, yelling at him.

"What do you mean, she has to throw up blood? She has to throw up blood?! What have you done to her?"

"It is an unfortunate by-product of dealing with the vampire curse, Alex. I can't help it, so for Christ's sake stop yelling at me about it!" Hal replied.

"He's right, Alex. It is what it is, so lay off him, alright?" Lena said as she looked at him. "You okay?"

"Yes."

"I'm going to get dressed, then." She did so and rejoined them shortly in her standard jeans and t-shirt ensemble. Today's shirt advertised Bob's Bait and Tackle, Home of the Original Wriggly Jiggler Lure, Guaranteed to Catch Fish or Your Money Back.

"I'm headed for the kitchen. If I don't get my coffee pretty soon I'm likely to tear someone a new asshole," she said in her usual refined manner. They went downstairs together, with Alex ahead of them. Tom was already at breakfast.

"You are an endless fountain of colloquialisms. Would you like me to cook your breakfast this morning?" Hal asked with a wicked little smile as they walked into the kitchen. "A nice fry-up, perhaps?"

"Bleurgh! Fuck you, Fangboy, I'll be lucky to keep down dry toast after the start I've had." But she laughed and he joined her, glad to see that she could joke with him again. It meant that she was doing okay.

"You two are disgusting!" Alex said. "I can't even decide which of you is worse. I'm going to work with Tom today. At least he knows how to behave."

Tom looked quite pleased to have Alex's company. "Maybe we can work on your tangibility, if you like," he said.

"You're working on your tangibility?" Lena asked.

"Yeah, it was Tom's idea," Alex explained. "Whenever I touch something I have to tell him what it feels like, so I have to make myself feel it."

"Sometimes I just throw stuff at her," Tom said happily, "and she has to catch it with her hands. She's getting real good at it, hardly ever misses."

"Tom says that the best thing is to catch me off guard, so I do it before I think that maybe I can't," Alex explained. "It works pretty well. I think I'm gonna try kissing next."

"Alex, you already know how to kiss," Hal said as Tom blushed and lowered his head. "We've established that."

"Yeah, but that was you kissing me, being all smooth and sexy and I wasn't thinking," Alex replied. "That's why it worked. I want to be the one to do the kissing, but Tom won't cooperate."

"Aw, Alex, we're mates," Tom said. "I don't go around kissin' me mates."

"C'mon Tom, who else am I gonna practice with? I've got to be ready, in case I find a ghost who knows how to shag."

"I'm late for work," Tom said, and he rushed out the door with Alex following him.

Hal shook his head as he watched them go. "Poor Tom."

"Why?" Lena asked.

"Tom has a very limited understanding of the world of adult sexuality and virtually no experience," Hal said. "His father kept him woefully in the dark."

"Haven't you told him anything?"

"I mentioned the birds and the bees, but he didn't get the connection," Hal said. "I believe he went to the library for some basic research."

"I'll sit him down and have a talk," Lena said. "He's got to know what he's getting into." She looked at Hal, expecting him to agree with her, but he simply looked puzzled. "You saw Alex. One of these days she's going to figure herself out, and she's going to ride that boy until he breaks."

"Oh, shit." The lightbulb went on in Hal's brain. "She'll ruin him, corrupt him beyond all recognition. We must prepare him for the onslaught."

"Right. We have the talk. Tonight."

# # #

Before the talk with Tom came the conference call with the team Lena had assembled to track Hetty. She gave Hal a headset for his laptop so he could join the video conference when introduced. She sat in the boudoir chair and he took the desk in her room, with the assumption that he might want to take notes while getting caught up on the team's activities. She logged them on and saw the split screens containing her empty desk chair along with the team leaders from each of the populated continents.

"Hello all, thanks for setting aside the time," Lena began. "and sorry for the construction noises in the background. We are doing a renovation. Nevertheless, I want you to meet the man I believe will be a big help in our efforts to find Hetty."

"Will he be joining us soon?" asked her African team leader.

"In fact, I am already here," Hal replied. "You won't be able to see me on your screens. I am a vampire."

Lena ignored the shocked expressions on her team leaders' faces and continued her introduction. "This is my housemate, Hal Yorke. Hetty has put a substantial price on his head, so we would like to find her as quickly as possible."

"As an Old One, I have in the past been privy to Mr. Snow's worldwide network of hideouts and escape routes, as Hetty would be also, of course," Hal said. "I had been out of touch with the Old Ones for several decades before their demise, but Mr. Snow was a creature of habit, and I would imagine that a substantial part of his network is still in place as I remember it. Hetty is very likely using it to move about undetected."

With that, Hal took control of the meeting, got everyone's names and geographic coverage areas, and spent the rest of the morning detailing where on each continent and within each region they should concentrate their efforts. His memory was astonishing.

Lena eventually left the video part of the conference so she could work on other things, but she maintained an audio link in order to follow along. Hal didn't need her for this.

He did need her to monitor the curse, and as the day progressed she saw the particular darkening and throbbing that signaled his awareness of her heartbeat and increased hunger for her blood. She slid her hand across the desk so they could make contact. He shook his head; he wanted to control it for himself. She narrowed her eyes and gave him the 'don't make me come over there' look.

He reluctantly placed his hand over hers and she grasped it and drew off the curse until he was back to himself. It barely affected her, and she decided that catching it early might be the best idea.

The conference lasted through lunch, so Lena excused herself briefly and ran to the kitchen for food, after which her team leaders got to watch the invisible man eat while continuing to direct the meeting.

Finally, nearly six hours after it had begun, everyone was satisfied with the information Hal had provided and plans were in place for renewed efforts to track the elusive Hetty. Lena took over the meeting in order to bring it to a close.

"Right, we will communicate as usual, daily emails through the secure server, general messages on our closed Facebook group, and tweets for immediate contact," she said. "And don't forget Tumblr for any photographs and notes that need immediate worldwide dispersal." She looked at Hal. "We have several roleplay accounts that allow us to speak freely. Our encryption/decryption software is quite good."

"How will we communicate with Mr. Yorke?" asked the South American team leader.

"He's already set up and I'm sending you the links to his email, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr accounts," Lena replied. "What do you think I've been doing all day?" She turned to Hal. "Welcome to the company, Hal. You're my employee now."

"In that case, we should discuss my salary," he said coolly.

"Tell me what you think you're worth," she said, "and don't lowball the figure, because you just became the guy in charge of the worldwide hunt for Hetty."

Her team leaders nodded their approval of her decision. They were already comfortable with the idea. Hal, on the other hand, was shocked and glad that nobody could see the look on his face except Lena. "I'll—have to think about it," he replied.

"Think about it while I walk you through our communications network," Lena replied. They ended the conference call and she showed him the accounts she had set up for him. He spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing and learning about the team's efforts since its establishment immediately after Stoker's. Lena had been telling the truth. She had been after Hetty for months.

"Why have you been so focused on Hetty?" he asked.

"I thought she was the last Old One," Lena explained. "My long-term goal is the extinction of your species, and with you gone I planned to get back into it. Just wasn't sure how, yet. Catching her was my first step."

Lena gave Hal the job of finding Hetty because it looked like he could handle it, and because the more he had to do, the less time she had to spend babysitting him. It was a simple as that for her. She wasn't trying to compliment his leadership skills or show her faith in him, she just wanted to keep him occupied. As Hal had both a vested interest in finding Hetty and some management experience, it seemed like the best job for him.

Hal read much more into her decision than she had intended.

# # #

Lena didn't get too worked up over the idea of having 'the talk' with Tom. She figured something would present itself, and she was right. She and Hal were washing up the supper dishes while Tom put away leftovers when Alex got the ball rolling.

She asked, "Hal freaks out over your blood, yeah? So what happens when you have your monthly?"

The question brought Hal to a standstill as he considered the ramifications of what Alex was saying. Lena wasn't fazed, however.

"I don't have a monthly."

"Ah, too old, eh?" Alex asked, a bit snidely.

"Nope. I never have had one."

"So, no kids then," Alex said.

"I've had children," Lena said calmly as she continued to dry and stack the dishes.

"How's that work? You just get pregnant whenever you have sex? Is that why you lived alone for so long?"

"For Christ's sake, Alex," Hal snapped, "do you not realize how intrusive this is?"

"It's okay, Hal," Lena said. "This isn't the first time I've dealt with these questions. No, Alex, I don't get pregnant every time I have sex. Most women don't, for that matter."

"So, how does it work then?"

"Well, Alex, when a man and a woman love each other very much they decide to become a daddy and a mommy and they call the stork who drops by with a perfect healthy baby," Lena said sarcastically. "What do you mean, how does it work?"

"I know how it works, but how does it work with you? Do you like, lay an egg or something? How can you have a kid without a monthly?"

"How can I do most of the things I can do? All I know is that when I'm in a relationship, a solid, long-term relationship that feels like it could last for the lifetime of my partner, I'm able to get pregnant. I can't explain it any more than I can explain how wings appear when I need them. It just happens." Lena sat the kitchen table with a cup of tea as she spoke, and Tom sat down across from her.

"Where are your kids?" he asked. "Do you see 'em much?"

"I have outlived them," she said quietly, and watched Tom's eyes fill with sorrow. He knew what it meant to lose your family.

"Aw, Lena, I'm sorry," he said, and he quietly put his hand over hers.

"Thanks. I keep track of most of my descendents, though," she added with a weak smile. "I still have those, at least."

"I only had McNair," Tom said. "I don't know about having descendents."

"Tom, it occurs to me that you may not know much about having children in general, or the process that is involved," Lena said.

"I don't." Tom shook his head in honest agreement with her. "McNair said that virginity was a precious flower, and I shouldn't pluck it for just anyone. But he never told me about the plucking when I found the one I wanted to pluck with. I went to the library, but the diagrams was confusing."

"Okay, so what do you want to know?"

"Everything?"

"Then let's start with the mechanics of sex," Lena said. She noticed that Hal and Alex had refrained from joining them at the table and had chosen instead to stay across the kitchen. Hal leaned against the sink with his arms folded and Alex perched on the countertop. _Cowards_, Lena thought.

"So Tom, are you interested in girls, guys, or both?"

"Girls, just girls," Tom replied hastily. He was already beginning to blush.

"Great. You spent a lot of time in the woods growing up, so you must have seen animals mating, right?"

"Yep."

"People have the same basic equipment as most mammals, as you probably have noticed."

Tom nodded.

"So the question is, how do your parts and her parts fit together, right?"

He nodded again.

"Okay. You know, Tom, a penis is multi-purpose. You can pee with it when it is just hanging around, and you can have sex with it when it is erect."

Alex snickered at Lena's description of the male anatomy. Hal gave her a 'shush' look. He thought Lena had done a good job and explained it in a way Tom would understand.

"Women have two separate holes for those things, a small one for peeing and a bigger one for sex. The one for sex is also the one that babies come out of and the one that our monthly blood comes out of, for those of us who have that. You know about a woman's monthly and about the womb and babies, right?"

"Yeah. I found pictures at the library," he replied.

"In order to have sex you have to find your partner's vagina, that's what the channel to the outside of our bodies is called, and push your penis into it," Lena said. "

Hal shifted uncomfortably as Lena's explanation became specific and graphic. He wasn't expecting her to be so matter-of-fact and had hoped for more theory and less step-by-step detail. Alex was now staring determinedly at the floor.

Lena continued, "There's more to it than that, obviously. You need to have an erection for it to work right, and you don't just sit there. You want to move back and forth and maybe a little side to side, depending on what gets you excited. The goal is to get very excited so you can ejaculate, which puts your sperm inside your partner so she can get pregnant."

"What if I don't want her to get pregnant?"

"Use birth control. Every time. You can still enjoy sex with your partner if you're careful."

Tom nodded and so did Hal. Good advice for a young man. No longer necessary for a dead man, of course. There were benefits to being a vampire.

"That's the mechanics of sex. It is also the least important part. The most important part is that you respect yourself and your partner, and treat each other well, and be kind to each other. Sex will be a disaster if you don't."

"Tom, your body is the first thing you possess when you come into the world and the last thing you give up when you leave. It is a very valuable part of yourself. Do not give your body away lightly, or trust strangers to treat it well. Because they won't and you will get hurt."

"You sound like McNair," Tom said, "only nicer and not as nervous."

Lena laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"Sounds old-fashioned to me," Alex spoke up from the counter. "What's wrong with having fun, you know, a little drink, a little sex, a little party? That's what we do these days." She was clearly suggesting that Lena was out of touch, for which Hal casually backhanded her on the arm. "Ow, that hurt," Alex said as she rubbed her arm and glared at him. Tangibility had its disadvantages.

"This is hardly the first culture to encourage sexual freedom, Alex," Lena said. "And it all sounds fun and harmless until you wake up after a blind drunken orgy with no idea how many dicks you've had or in what orifices."

Lena realized she may have said too much when she saw the shocked expressions on Tom and Alex's faces and the blatant desire on Hal's. She hastened to add, "Which only happened once and which is why I will never touch passum again."

"There's a reason I don't drink Kia-Ora," Hal said with a conspirator's smile. He could personally relate to her story.

Lena decided to forge ahead with her lesson, so she turned back to Tom. "When you have sex with another person you share the most intimate part of yourself, and you give a piece of yourself to your partner. You can't undo that. It changes you. Great sex is the best thing on earth, but bad sex will ruin you, so be careful. And if your partner ever pushes you to do something you don't want to do, throw her out, because she does not have your best interest at heart."

Tom nodded. "I think I know what you're saying, but I still have some questions."

She waited for him to ask one, but he didn't. He just squirmed in his chair and blushed.

"On to anatomy then, shall we?" Lena asked with a knowing smile.

Tom nodded, relieved that he didn't have to speak.

"Your anatomy is easy, Tom, it's all pretty much out there for anyone to see. Your partner shouldn't have too much trouble getting you excited, as long as you let her know what you like and don't like when she touches you."

Alex snorted. She could vouch for the ease with which men got excited. She hadn't found much that a guy didn't like about being touched. She looked at Hal. He appeared to be lost in a memory, a half-smile on his face.

"But a woman's anatomy is a whole different thing. We are like buried treasure, you have to invest some time finding us," Lena said. "A woman has folds of tissue that cover her sex organs. You have to get in between the folds to find them. You need to carefully feel your way along. She's very delicate in that area, so you don't want to hurt her. You'll find her vagina; it will be moist, hopefully very wet and a bit slick if she is excited. It self-lubricates to prepare for sex."

"That's dead convenient, ain't it?" Tom said, marveling at the wonder of the female body.

"It is very handy, and it is a good signal that she's as interested as you are. If she isn't nice and wet, you'll have to work on getting her to that point, so it won't hurt when you stick your penis in her."

"How do I do that?"

"She will probably be able to tell you. Most people like kisses, you have to try out a few and see which kinds you like best. Some people like to have their necks and shoulders kissed—"

"Unless you're dating a vampire," Alex muttered, for which Hal casually backhanded her arm again.

"—some people like to have their ears kissed or nibbled on. Most people like to have their breasts touched. Really, any area that feels good when you touch it with your hand is probably also a good area to kiss. Finding out is part of the fun."

"Okay, got it." Tom was invested in the lesson now. His embarrassment was gone.

"So, you found her vagina and it is nice and moist so you know she's interested. But you want her to be really, really interested. Move up from her vagina, toward the front of her body just a bit, and you'll find her clitoris. It is a little bump of tissue that is loaded with nerve endings and is extremely sensitive to touch. Like the tip of your penis."

Tom's eyes got big and his eyebrows nearly leapt off his head. He understood the reference.

"Invest a little time with it, Tom, and your partner will be very happy. When you have spent time enjoying each other and when you are sure you are both ready, you have sex. With birth control. Unless you are certain that you want to have a baby." Lena sat back in her chair, the lesson ended.

Hal breathed a sigh of relief. She really had been very explicit and he had been able to visualize it very clearly as she spoke. He was beginning to get hungry, and not for a sandwich. He suspected that the curse was giving him away to Lena's ever-observant eye.

"So that's it? That's everything?" Tom was impressed with how easy it had all been to understand.

"Well, it's enough to start, at least," Lena replied. "Some things are best discovered as you go along."

"Thanks Lena, thanks for tellin' me," Tom said as he stood up and started out of the kitchen.

"Oh, Tom? One more thing," Lena said as she also got up from the table. "Masturbation is perfectly normal, for men and women. Just don't make too much noise and clean up after yourself, okay?"

"Okay!" Tom strode over and gave Lena an awkward hug before running up the stairs to his room.

"You don't think he's going to—" Alex didn't finish the sentence. "You know what? I don't want to know. You did great with him, Lena. Not a stutter or a blush."

"I've had children. I'm an old hand at the talk." Lena shrugged off the compliment.

"I wish my mum had done half as good," Alex said as she hopped off the countertop. She went to the living room to watch television, and to think about what Lena had said.

"That was quite impressive," Hal said. "Much better than I could have done, and frankly I wouldn't have said anything about respect or kindness, as they aren't a consideration for vampires. You prepared him well."

"I hope so."

"Now, about that blind drunken orgy…"

"Never in a million years, Fangboy. Not one more syllable will I utter." Lena looked at him. "Can you tell it is getting strong again?" The curse had darkened and was moving in time with her heartbeat again.

"Yes. I should not have paid such close attention to your discussion. I'm not sure which I want more right now, your blood or your sex. Actually, drinking your blood while having sex would be perfect," he said matter-of-factly.

"Of course, you will be getting neither my blood nor my sex. I can offer to remove some of the curse from you, but you are on your own for the rest," she said.

"Right. Don't make too much noise and clean up after myself. I was paying attention," Hal replied sarcastically. "Are you quite certain you wouldn't like to have sex? I'm very skilled. You would enjoy it, I promise you." He had moved closer to her as he spoke; his voice had become a seductive purr.

Lena ignored the thrill down her spine and the empty ache in her belly; she also ignored the voice in her head that was screaming '_Of course you're skilled you jackass! Who do you think taught you those skills?'_ She wondered how many thousand women had fallen for that voice and those skills and died because of it. She shook her head.

"And yet respect and kindness aren't a consideration for you. No thank you, Hal. I require more of my lovers than just skill. Hold out your hands," Lena said, and she took his hands and drew the curse of her blood from him again, for the third and last time that day.

The following day Hal only required her assistance twice. After that the hunger was manageable and no longer reached the point that it required her intervention. Whenever he touched her, however, her blood sang to him, a tantalizing melody that harmonized with the humming of his own body and warned him that if she ever allowed him to get close to her he should avoid kissing her neck.


	18. Chapter 18 New Friends, Old Lovers

Lloyd and Judy Sutherland had been married for nearly 40 years, the last two of which had been spent mourning the death of their son Samuel, artist and werewolf.

They had refused to believe it at first, that their brilliant, creative, loving child had suddenly become a monster at the age of 19. Monsters weren't real, and if they were real, they certainly didn't exist in metropolitan London. Monsters were for children's stories of faraway dangerous lands and long-ago times.

Even after their old friend Bernard Israsson had taken them aside and told them of his own Seraphin Nepos nature, showed them his grey wings, and explained that creatures existed beyond the understanding of mankind, they had clung to the hope that their son was still human. Even after Sam had confessed that he felt a change in himself, the growth of something foreign and unfriendly deep in his being, they had refused to believe it could be true. Only as they witnessed Sam's first transformation for themselves did they finally come to terms with what had happened to him and to their family.

Bernard had seen the shadow of the wolf grow over Sam's being and had offered Sam a safe place to wait for his first full moon after the werewolf attack. He had cleared out and reinforced a room in the basement of his home for the young man to use, and had installed a heavy door with a peephole so that he could check on Sam during the night. It was Sam's idea that his parents use the peephole to see for themselves what he had become. He needed them to accept it because he couldn't face it alone.

Bernard was Sam's godfather and took the attack on him personally. He had hunted down and destroyed the werewolf who attacked and injured the boy. After Sam's first transformation Bernard had helped the Sutherlands relocate from London to a country home with privacy, security, and room for Sam to run on those nights when he was forced into it by the curse that claimed him.

Bernard had arranged for Lena to meet the Sutherlands during one of her business trips to London. At his request she had invited them to her home in the States for a family holiday, one of the few times she had allowed visitors into her sanctuary. They were a lovely couple, and Sam was a delightful, witty, artistic young man who spent hours in her gardens painting the flowers and hummingbirds that he loved. She still had two of his works hanging in her conservatory.

The Sutherlands stayed for over a month with Lena, the only time during Sam's years as a werewolf that they dared to be away from home on the full moon. When the moon called to Sam, Lena took him deep into the woods on her property and stayed near him as he ran down and devoured a white-tailed deer. She carried him away from his kill after he had fallen into the stupor of a predator with a full belly and she cleaned him up as best she could before he awoke. In the morning she brought Sam his clothes and took him back to the house. Sam was a vegetarian who didn't believe in killing animals for food.

Bernard did everything he could to assure that Sam had a long and happy life, but the wolf eventually wore him down and made him bitter. Sam grew reckless and foolish and got himself killed trying a stupid stunt on a motorcycle too powerful for him to handle. It was a particularly vicious kind of suicide, committed just two days before the full moon. He was the Sutherlands' only child.

Lloyd and Judy were the friends that Lena had mentioned to Dominic Rook and to Beth and Ben Riley. She told some pieces of their story to her housemates, and they agreed to a meeting at Honolulu Heights midway through the moon's cycle. She invited her friend Bernard to join them as he had first introduced her to the Sutherlands. She assumed correctly that Bernard would want to be involved in her effort to introduce the young Riley werewolves to his old friends.

Lena decided not to have a formal dinner but rather a casual buffet which would allow plenty of time for conversation. Thankfully the first phase of the renovation was nearly complete and the kitchen was in order again. The place smelled of fresh paint and plaster and had the odd look of a project in the works, but an early dismissal of the work crew and a quick cleanup got it ready for guests.

Bernard came from London with such a huge assortment of breads, meats, and cheeses that Lena accused him of hijacking a deli. Then she saw the myriad containers of delicacies that he'd also brought and decided that he had ravished a catering company as well. Bernard was certain that she would have no idea how to hostess the evening, as she had been living alone in the 'wilds' of America for some time. She was certain that he was grossly overestimating the palates of her guests when he laid out five different kinds of olives and three chutneys.

Hal, on the other hand, was pleased to see that there was finally an appropriately civilized variety of foodstuffs in the house and determined to make the most of the opportunity, even if it meant extra time on the stationary bicycle in the morning. Tom just tried to figure out how much meat he would be able to pile between two pieces of bread without the whole thing collapsing on him, and which bread he should probably work with.

Lloyd and Judy Sutherland drove from their home along the River Wye near Capler Wood in Herefordshire. They brought a photo album, a home movie their son had made, and their memories. Lena had informed them that she lived with an eclectic group of individuals, so they were prepared for the introductions.

Hal handled the host duties with his usual charm, which left Lena to relax and enjoy the company of her friends. They had planned an hour together before Dominic Rook arrived with Ben and Beth Riley, and it was an hour well-spent. Tom wanted to know everything he could about the Sutherlands before they met Ben and Beth; he needed to see for himself what kind of people they were. Lloyd and Judy were curious about him as well, so they got out the photo album and shared their lives with him, and Tom told them about McNair and his life as a werewolf.

Alex felt left out, as the Sutherlands couldn't see her. She was becoming more tangible to supernaturals but couldn't make herself known to humans yet. Bernard saw Alex's frustration and drew her into his conversation with Lena, so she ended up hearing a few hair-raising stories about their adventures.

Hal brought drinks for everyone, then sat near Lena quietly and enjoyed her smile, her laughter, and the sparkle in her eyes. His hope was to be unobtrusive and helpful for once, rather than the one in need of assistance. He knew she was aware of what he was doing when she caught his eye and smiled at him.

Alex left shortly before Rook arrived with the Rileys. "I have a date," she announced. "We're going dancing. Don't wait up, Nana," she added when she saw Lena's look.

"I'll expect to meet the young man if there is a second date," Lena replied calmly.

"You can't be serious." Alex was appalled at the notion of having her dates approved.

"Yes I can," Lena said with a cool smile. "Don't make me go looking for him."

"Fine, I'll invite him in for tea if he's worth a second shot," Alex snipped, and she disappeared.

Hal looked at Lena, puzzled. "Why are you so bothered?"

"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'* Shakespeare knew what he was talking about, Hal," Lena said. "The world is a dangerous place for you all."

"But not for you?" Hal noticed that she had exempted herself.

"From time to time," Lena acknowledged. "Just a bit."

Rook arrived with the Rileys and the buffet was opened for everyone's dining pleasure. Tom remembered his manners well enough to make sure that Ben and Beth were introduced to the Sutherlands and even let them get their food before he did. They sat at the dining table and ate while Lloyd and Judy asked them about their first transformation. They remembered how terrifying it had been for Sam.

Rook sat with them, eating quietly. Lena had given him advanced word on the Sutherlands so he could review Samuel Sutherland's file at the Archive. He had found nothing but positive notes about the family's care in attending to the needs of the werewolf in their midst. Lena had also let him know that another Seraphin Nepos would be present this evening, a consideration that he appreciated. Rook didn't care for surprises.

Hal found himself hosting an event from which he would derive no benefit. He was the only vampire in a crowd of his natural enemies, some of whom he knew were proficient killers of his species. He had no vested interest in the Sutherlands or the Rileys, and he had no interest whatsoever in spending an evening with Rook. The situation was entirely foreign to his nature and yet he found himself determined to make the evening to go well, for Tom's sake and for Lena's.

He especially wanted Lena to approve of him; she had trusted him with a huge responsibility by giving him charge of the Hetty situation and access to her private communications network. Even as he fought her and tried to kill her while enthralled by her blood, she had been careful of him and kind to him. She had brought misery on herself in order to help him when it would have been easy to simply let him die. He had repaid her kindness by trying to seduce her, again. At least no assault was involved this time, but still, he had been true to form. This evening was a chance for him to show her that he could be something besides the monster she had battled; something more like the man she could trust.

Hal was beginning to feel a bit peckish so decided to indulge in a plate full of the London fare that Bernard had provided. He looked for a place to sit; he didn't want to interrupt the werewolf group at the table. Hal was also beginning to feel peckish in another way and needed proximity to Lena to settle himself down, but she sat on the sectional with Bernard. They were chatting while balancing their plates in their laps. He didn't want to disturb her.

As if she were reading his mind, Lena turned to look at Hal with a smile and extended an arm over the back of the sectional in an invitation to join them. He happily did so.

"Thank you for being such a good host this evening," Lena said as he sat next to her. She rested her hand casually on his forearm as she spoke, and slipped her fingers under his sleeve gently in order to give him the skin-to-skin contact that was most effective. "You've allowed me to ignore my hostessing duties and spend time with an old friend."

"That was my goal," Hal said.

"I appreciate it. I might also appreciate a few bites of whatever you have on your plate, if you will identify it for me first," she said.

Hal was loathe to give up any of the treats he had assembled for himself, so he replied, "Perhaps I could just make you a nice ham sandwich instead?"

"Smartass," Lena said with a laugh, and Bernard laughed as well.

"Hal has you pegged," Bernard said. "That's why I insisted on bringing some food tonight."

"For which I am grateful," Hal said.

"Actually, Bernard is interested in how my proximity affects you," Lena said. "Would you be willing to talk with him about it? I didn't want to say anything without including you."

"If you like," Hal said. He wasn't comfortable discussing personal things, but would do his best. He looked at Bernard. "I assume you can see the curse?"

"Yes, although not as clearly as Lena." Bernard replied. "I did notice slight color changes when you came over just now, and again when she touched you."

"Yes, there are varying levels of effect, based on proximity and physical contact," Hal replied. "Skin-to-skin contact has the most immediate effect, as we have discovered."

"Fascinating."

"You sound a little Spockish there, Bernard," Lena said. "This is a living arrangement, not an inter-species science experiment."

"Actually, it's both," Bernard reminded her. "I've never heard of this level of cooperation between Seraphin Nepos and vampire."

Hal spoke before Lena had a chance to. "Vampires typically don't give their slaves the chance to cooperate. Lena has been much kinder to me than I would have been to her, had our situations been reversed."

"Do you consider yourself Lena's slave, then?" Bernard asked.

Hal smiled. "I am my lady's willing subject," he replied diplomatically.

"Nice save, Fangboy," Lena said dryly. "I think we've established that we are more or less stuck in this together so we need to make the best of it. Although, truth be told, you don't have a choice."

"No, I don't. You've made that quite clear," Hal replied. "But you also believe that you do not have a choice, and your presence is keeping me from killing, so from your point of view the experiment is a success."

"It won't be a success until I've defeated the vampire curse once and for all," Lena replied grimly.

"Do you believe you can do that?" Hal asked. "You've talked about it as if it were impossible."

"It is very powerful. It has never been broken. But I like having a goal, and I don't give up," Lena answered.

"As long as it doesn't involve subjecting me to religious ritualism or a miniature circus," Hal said. "Neither one of them has been a success for me in the past."

"Aren't you an Old One?" Bernard asked. "I assume that religious rituals have no effect on you."

"They don't. They are quite tedious, however, and unless I am in need of a nap I would rather not spend my time with one."

Bernard moved on. "What did Lena tell you about her reason for being here?"

"She said that she isn't allowed to kill me, or to arrange for me to be killed, or to allow me to be killed. Apparently I have done something to cause her to hate me a great deal and on a personal level," Hal said in a neutral tone. "She said that she would celebrate my death to the extent that it would put her soul at risk. She will not discuss the details."

"What do you make of that?" Bernard asked.

"I would imagine that she is one in a very long queue of people who would rejoice at my death. I have led a horrific life and would be adding to my list of atrocities at this moment if I weren't being kept from it," Hal said honestly. "I'm sure I deserve whatever hatred she has toward me."

"And what do you feel toward her? Does it make a difference in her effect on you?"

"I can't tell that it does," Hal answered the second question and avoided the first. "She is able to calm the vampire even as I manifest and struggle against her."

"You didn't answer the first question," Bernard noted.

"I don't have an answer." Hal chose to speak a half-truth and hope that the curse didn't give him away. "My feelings toward Lena vary depending on the situation and the extent to which I am free from the influence of the curse. There are times when I want nothing more than the taste of her blood. There are times when I want nothing more than for her to consider me her friend. It is all very much in flux."

"Don't forget about the times when you want nothing more than a good shag," Lena teased him.

Hal flicked his eyebrows at her with a smile. "That feeling is consistent, regardless of what else may be afoot, my lady."

"That would certainly provide skin-to-skin contact," Bernard said, "but it would also break the edict against Seraphin Nepos commingling with cursed beings."

"She mentioned an edict, but I believe it is also Lena's preference that we avoid such intimate contact," Hal said.

"It is. Actually, the edict takes you and Tom both off the table," Lena replied.

"Takes me off the table for what?" Tom said, popping over the back of the sectional.

"Sex with me," Lena replied. "I can't do it with vampires or werewolves, breaks the rules."

"Oh," Tom said, slightly embarrassed. "I didn't know I was on the table."

"You weren't, Tom, that's what she's saying," Hal said.

"So you can have sex on a table, but not with us? Why would you want to do that anyway? That's just crackers," Tom said, still not quite getting it. "Anyway, I thought you was with Bernard, sort of," he added, looking from Lena to her friend.

"No, we are not that kind of friends," Lena said.

"Although when I was younger, I pursued her relentlessly," Bernard said lightly.

"What happened?" Tom asked. He didn't realize that the question was tactless.

"She allowed me to catch her," Bernard answered as the old friends shared a gentle smile. "Just the once. It was all I needed. I learned to set my sights much lower."

Lena felt the pulse in Hal's wrist jump and quicken as Bernard spoke. She thought it best to change the subject. "Did you want something, Tom?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, Lloyd and Judy brought a home movie. We're gonna watch it," Tom said, and he waved the rest of the group into the living room, where they sat and watched Sam Sutherland's gift to his parents on their 30th wedding anniversary. It was a touching tribute to their love and dedication to him and to each other, and it included clips of old videos from his childhood.

Lena felt tears start to slide down her face at the memory of the wonderful young man who couldn't find a way to live with the wolf, and Hal silently handed her a neatly-folded handkerchief. _A gentleman is always prepared_, she thought to herself as she accepted it with a quick smile. It didn't occur to her that Hal's action meant he was watching her rather than the movie.

A box of tissues was passed around the room as the movie came to an end. Even Rook looked slightly dewy-eyed.

Lloyd Sutherland broke the silence. "We'd like Ben and Beth to come visit us," he said. "Chaperoned, of course. We'd love for you to see our home and consider making it your own."

"We have everything we need to take care of a werewolf, except the werewolf," Judy Sutherland added. "Our home is empty, and we are lonely. We know we can't replace your parents," she added, looking at the Rileys, "and we don't expect you to replace our son. But we need each other, I think, and we could get along well together."

"I could arrange for a day trip," Rook said. "I will drive them myself." He wasn't willing to relinquish his responsibility for the Rileys just yet.

"I'd like to come with ya, maybe bring Alex along," Tom said. "I reckon the hotel can do without me for a day."

"We'd like that very much," said Ben Riley.

Beth nodded her agreement and added, "The sooner the better. No offense, Mr. Rook, but the Archive isn't the most homey place to be living."

"We'd be happy to see you as early as tomorrow," Lloyd said, checking to make sure Judy agreed. She nodded her approval.

"In that case, I suggest we set a time and I get the coordinates to your home," Rook said, "after which, we really should return to the Archive. I must prepare for my absence tomorrow."

Before Rook left Bernard pulled him aside. "What about the werewolf that infected them?" he asked, nodding toward Beth and Ben.

"We are still looking for it," Rook replied. "We believe we may be able to locate it at the next full moon."

"That is a dangerous way to hunt," Bernard said. "Call me if you want my help. I've done that kind of work before." He handed Rook his card.

"I will certainly do so," Rook said, with a steely look in his eye. "Your help will be greatly appreciated."

The capture of the werewolf who infected the Rileys was part of Rook's larger plan for the Department of Domestic Defense that included not just monitoring supernaturals but bringing them into the process of policing themselves. It was his hope to establish a tribunal of sorts, one populated by werewolves who had assimilated into human society and who could decide for themselves the fate of those who had not done so.

Rook hoped that Tom McNair would become part of the jury of werewolf peers that would help establish a code of conduct and punishment for werewolves that injured, infected, or killed humans. The human criminal justice system was woefully inadequate when it came to supernaturals, and Tom was one of the most ethical creatures of any type that Rook had ever encountered. He hoped that Tom's commitment to the Rileys would lead him into further interest in appropriate punishment for the werewolf who had attacked their family.

It was to be a case study in the probability of the success of Rook's plan. Of course, he had yet to mention any of that to Tom. _In due time_, Rook thought. _It will all come together in due time_.

Hal found a chance to speak with Bernard by offering to help clear away the leftovers from the buffet table. "How long have you and Lena known each other?" he asked.

"Longer than I care to admit," Bernard answered. "Over a thousand years."

"Were you also involved in the Seraphin war?"

"Yes, I did what I could. We would have lost to you if not for her." Bernard acknowledged their shared history as Lena joined them.

"I'm just sorry I didn't know about it sooner, Bernard," she said. "We lost some good friends and family in the genocide."

"You lost family. Is that why you hate me so much?" Hal asked her.

She studied him for a moment. "Yes I did. And that is a good part of it, yes."

"You said you didn't know about it at first. Where were you?" Hal asked. He thought the Seraphin Nepos genocide was the most well-known event in the supernatural world at the time.

"Hunting." Lena shook her head and walked away to signal that the conversation was over.

Hal looked at Bernard, who shrugged. "I don't think she ever said."

Lena had never officially reported her whereabouts during the 10 years that she was off the map at the end of the 1600's. She had joined the war against the vampires immediately upon her return from the Gobi, and she had been caught and held captive by her father and grandfather after that. By the time Lena was released Ammon had forgotten about her missing time and she wasn't interested in reminding him. She was too busy getting as far away from Hal Yorke as she could. It was the only way she could keep her word not to kill him.

Lena moved to a different continent and became part of the growth of a new country. She tried to forget the monster Yorke, but he haunted her dreams and reigned in her nightmares. She waited to hear of his death and her freedom, but by the time the news came that he had been destroyed in the explosion at Stoker's the world had changed so much that she no longer knew her place in it.

Bernard was the last one to leave Honolulu Heights that evening and he left behind plenty of food for Hal to enjoy and Tom to devour over the next few days. Lena was thankful for the gift, because if she had anything to say about it there would be no time for cooking until after her studio was finished. She needed it desperately; her body ached with the craving to dance away the weight of the turmoil of her thoughts and emotions.

# # #

It was the end of a long day by the time the dance studio was finished, with the old hardwood floor stripped and re-polished, the original ceiling height restored, and a kick-ass sound system mounted on one wall, complete with racks for Lena's extensive CD collection. She loved iTunes, but there was just something about holding the music in her hand that made her happy. There were no ballet bars or mirrors in the room, no special equipment of any kind, just space and light and music.

Lena wanted to break it in right away, but out of consideration for her housemates she agreed to stop for a late supper, shower, and rest. She chafed a bit at the restrictions put on her by Hal's need to be near her at all times. He was clearly tired and not in the mood to be pushed any further.

Later as she worked quietly in her room she recognized the stillness from across the wall that meant he was sleeping. His body didn't bother to pretend to be human when he was unconscious; his heart and lungs moved infrequently, as if he were in hibernation.

She slipped down the hall and into the studio in the sleep shorts and t-shirt she had put on after her shower. At first she just stretched and took herself through some simple rhythmic moves, but her pent-up emotions and the stress of dealing with the blood curse needed more than simple rhythm. She yearned for the release that dancing to a truly heart-wrenching, soul-crushing song would provide. She went to the CD rack and put on Adele: "Didn't I give it all, tried my best, gave you everything I had, everything and no less?"*

As the words poured from the speakers Lena rose and spun and dipped like a bird with a broken wing. She reached out for the lover she had lost, desperate to draw him back, angry and grief-stricken. She wasn't Lena anymore; she was Nastusia, wretchedly in love and despairing in Henry's abandonment of her.

"Just take it, take it all with you. Don't look back at this crumbling fool."

She heard a noise at the door and turned to see Hal staring at her, aghast. Instantly she dropped into the persona he knew in the hope that it wasn't too late. He looked at her for a few seconds, then blinked and turned away, and closed the door behind him as he left. She heard him return to his room as the song ended.

Hal had awakened and felt the lack of Lena's presence in the next room. He waited quietly in bed, assuming that she had gone to the bathroom, until he heard music drifting down the hall from the dance studio. Certain that he had found her, Hal tried to go back to sleep, but he felt the bloodlust begin to stir and knew it was no use. He tried not to be cranky about the notion of getting up at this time of night because of somebody's addiction to dancing; after all, she dedicated herself to his well-being in a way that was truly moving at times. He suspected that he was unaware of all the sacrifices Lena made in order to remain close to him.

Hal had continued to wear shorts to bed since returning to his own room. He didn't bother to dress before going down the hall to the studio. He leaned against the wall opposite the door and waited for her proximity to calm him. He listened to the song lyrics and thought back to Poland, spring 1514, and Nastusia, who had given him the world and then left him without so much as a good-bye.

Hal decided to just peek in and watch her dance for a minute; after all, she hadn't said anything about the room being a private space. He opened the door and saw Nastusia spinning to face him. In a blink she was gone and his guardian had returned to look at him with quizzical grey eyes. He shut the studio door and walked unsteadily to his room.

Hal sat on the side of the bed and tried to calm the turmoil in his brain. He had imagined her, of course. She was still so vivid in his memory, after all these centuries, that he had simply imagined her. It wasn't his Nastusia; she had had brilliant blue eyes and he had looked into grey eyes just now. He shook his head and tried to clear away the cobwebs.

"Hal?" Lena spoke from the doorway of his room. "You okay?" She could tell by the darkened curse that he wasn't.

"Yes. Of course. Quite." He walked toward the open door and her. "I didn't mean to bother you. I woke up and—realized that you were gone." He held the doorknob in his hand as he finished speaking, as if he were encouraging her to leave him alone.

"I didn't think you would notice my absence. I'm sorry to have disturbed your rest." She saw the curse lighten as they drew close and decided that he would be alright. She turned toward her own room. "Good night."

"Good night," Hal replied. She was halfway through the door to her room when he gasped out her name, breathlessly, as if it had been forced from him. "Lena?" She stopped and looked down the hall at him, expressionless.

"Have we—met—before?" Hal nearly choked on the question, suddenly terrified of her answer.

An aching sadness fell over her features as she responded. "Yes Henry, we have."

He stood frozen as she closed the door to her room and left him alone. He stumbled back into his room, shut the door, and leaned against it with a hard look skyward. "You incomparable bastard," he said to the God who had turned away from him so long ago.

Of all the women in the world for him to be dependent upon, addicted to, in love with, it would have to be the one who had hurt him the worst. How could he trust her, now that he knew she had abandoned him once already?

"Bugger!" He lay stiffly on his bed and listened to the soft tapping of keys through the wall. Lena was at her laptop, Twittering or Facebooking or Tumblring while he was tying himself in knots over her. He turned onto his side and curled into a ball as the memories rolled over him like a tidal surge.

They met in the stable. He had just intervened to keep his new boss, Pyotr, from whipping one of the horses, and the man had turned the whip on him instead. She appeared and pulled the whip from Pyotr's hand and furiously drove the man away, then took him to the estate house and introduced him to the staff as her new stable master. She made sure he was washed, fed, and given a proper room and her personal livery to wear. She introduced him to her cousin Andrzej, the lord of the estate, at the same time she told the man that she would kill Pyotr if he ever touched her horses again.

Nastusia taught her new stable master how her animals liked to be handled, the four perfectly matched carriage horses and two riding horses each with their own personalities. Henry, as he was called at the time, had no idea what a stable master was, he had just jumped off a ship in Gdansk because he was sick of the sailor's life and wanted something different. She worked with him and made sure he was comfortable with each task, from grooming the horses to cleaning the tack and stalls.

Nastusia didn't care what anyone thought of her. She worked in the stables alongside him; she rode her horse astride, wearing hose and knee-high boots with a shortened gown and kirtle. She joined the festival dances in the village and spent time in the cottages caring for sickly peasants. She refused to be courted, although suitors lined up to meet her. When her cousin invited guests to dinner she brought Henry and sat him next to her so she could talk to someone interesting.

She rode out every day, no matter what the weather, on Diabel, the stallion that nobody else could touch except him. This was the horse he had saved from Pyotr's whip, the one he would eventually steal from the estate. When it snowed and the grey wolves howled close around the cottages Nastusia wrapped herself in a coat and hat made of white fur that nobody could recognize, belted on a sword, and disappeared into the woods on Diabel. The horse leaped drifts and deadfalls with ease, but when they returned hours later, with two wolf carcasses slung across his back, Diabel was worn out and ready for his stall.

He had asked her about the meaning of her name. She told him it meant 'stronger than death,' and that she was. Somehow he believed her.

They were eating dinner in the back kitchen one evening when she looked at him and said, "I'd like to have sex with you. Would you mind?"

He didn't mind at all, of course, so she took him to her room and tolerated his selfish and clumsy advances. He had been born in a brothel and raised by women who had no illusions about sex as anything more than a way to make a living, so he knew very little beyond the mechanics of his own orgasm.

When he finished and rolled off of her she said, "Now that's out of the way, let me show you what you've been missing." She spent hours with him and taught him the benefits of slowing down and paying attention to his partner. "It's simple. The more you do for me, the more I'll do for you," she said. She taught him about his own pleasure centers as well as hers, and he decided that he absolutely wanted her to do things for him, so he learned to pleasure her as well.

For five months they were inseparable. Then he returned from exercising the horses one day to find her gone and apparently not coming back. Andrzej gave him the day to pack up and get out. When Henry rode off on Nastusia's prize stallion later that night he wondered which of the two of them she had found more difficult to leave.

*Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

*lyrics from "Take it All" sung by Adele on the **21 **CD.


	19. Chapter 19 Dreams and Ambition

The knowledge that Lena was his old lover Nastusia tore a hole right down the middle of Hal's world and left him clinging to its jagged edge. He had just admitted to himself that he loved her, that he wanted to earn her respect and maybe, some day, something less than hatred from her. It had caused him physical pain to learn that she was Nastusia, a woman who had loved him when he was human, or had claimed to at any rate, and the lover who had taught him what it meant to give himself fully to another person. It was a blow that sent him reeling and kept him awake for hours, and when he finally slept, Hal was tormented by her even more.

Hal awoke from a dream of sex with Nastusia on horseback, something they had accomplished more than once. He gasped at the intensity of the dream; his throbbing cock reminded him of just how amazing she had been. He touched himself gingerly to see if this was just his usual morning situation, but such was not the case. Hal really wished he could grab a woman off the street for a fuck and a snack, but drinking blood and killing were frowned on by the current regime. He wasn't sure of the official position on fucking, but since it generally ended in blood and usually in death he supposed it was off the table as well.

He considered going next door to Lena's room to see if she would like to resume their old relationship, but a moment's thought told him that would be a bad idea. She had already made it clear to him that she wasn't interested.

_Onanism it is then_, he thought as he trudged to the loo for a wank and a cold shower. This was very likely a problem that would require both. _And it's only 4am. This is going to be a long day._

Lena heard Hal go to the bathroom and guessed the reason, as she had heard him moaning in his sleep just a bit earlier. She recognized that moan. She had caused that moan on numerous occasions. She began to think about causing that moan again, but not in such a nice way. Now that Hal knew she was the lover he ran out on so long ago, she could make him just a little bit miserable for it. _Payback's a_ _bitch,_ she thought as she began to consider just how miserable she wanted to make him.

Hal was able to catch a few more hours of sleep before daylight and discomfort woke him again. Dreams of Nastusia had roared through his head, but this time he hadn't been a bastard and a charity case, he had returned to her as Lord Henry Yorke and made her pay for abandoning him. He devoured her in an orgy of vampire blood sex; he mastered her easily and made her his slave. He drank from her slowly and took bites from every part of her body even as she begged him to fuck her again and again. He drank the blood of her orgasm and when he was finished at last, sated, he tore her bloodless body to pieces and burned her to ash.

For most people his dream would have been considered a first-class nightmare, but for Hal Yorke it was just expanding on the highlights of a horrifying life. In his dreams Hal had punished her for leaving him countless times and in countless ways. The allure of her Seraphin Nepos blood only made the dream sweeter.

He headed straight for the cold shower again with the hope that round two of vampire versus perpetual hard-on would be the last one for the day. He intended to add a rigorous calisthenics routine before breakfast, just to take the edge off his energy level. Focus and exhaustion would be his friends.

By the time Hal had showered and dressed the sharp pang of bloodlust was becoming difficult to bear. He had been apart from her for too long. He had just reached his room when he smelled, heard and nearly tasted someone passing by outside. He ran to the window and pressed himself against it, inhaled deeply, and felt his fangs unsheathe as he caught the lingering scent of a workman on his way to the docks. He shuddered as he hurried to Lena's room. He needed her **now**.

She was gone.

A lightning bolt of panic flashed through him as his eyes swirled around the room and looked for her in every shadow and crevice. She was not there. He caught her scent coming from the studio. He whirled and strode down the hall quickly toward the open studio door, his bloodlust diminishing with each step closer to her. His fangs retreated, his vision cleared, his trembling ceased. He no longer felt the need to kill the first five or six people he could catch.

He stepped into the studio to discover that a terrible monster had apparently dragged Lena from her bed in her underwear, folded her in half, and planted her body in the middle of the studio floor. He could think of no other explanation for what he was seeing, until he saw her slow, measuring breathing, heard her steady heartbeat, and smelled the delicate aroma of her sweat, sweeter than human perspiration. She was apparently working out, but what Lena was doing bore no resemblance to the discipline and exertion of his workout routine.

Hal was entranced. His eyes traveled over her firm round buttocks, currently the northernmost part of her anatomy, which were barely covered by some form-fitting kind of pants. He moved south to her naked upside-down torso visible between her bare legs, her abdominal muscles flexed as she held herself in this ridiculous position. He moved further south to her upside-down breasts, also barely covered by some stretchy brassiere from which they were trying to escape, using gravity as their henchman. Next his gaze reached her upside-down face, which was relaxed, eyes closed, as her mouth moved in a barely audible countdown. Finally he saw her upside-down ponytail brushing the floor between her hands, which were palms down, resting beside her feet.

Hal heard her whisper "One." She took a deep breath, whispered "Ten" and began to rise, impossibly slowly, languorously, reaching "One" again before she was erect, facing away from him. Hal became self-aware enough to realize that he was gawping at her. He was about to make his presence known when she took another deep breath, whispered "Ten" and began to bend backward. Her back arched and legs bowed as she made slow controlled progress toward the floor again. She counted "One" as her head reached a position between her legs and her palms again rested on the floor. Her torso was taut, her breasts once again strained toward gravity's embrace. She breathed and began to hold position for a slow 10-count, midway through which Hal came unglued.

It was absolutely impossible to watch her performance and maintain any semblance of control. Visions of her limber body wrapped around him in various positions flooded Hal's senses as he ground his teeth, turned on his heels, and stalked to the loo for round three of vampire versus perpetual hard-on. He was beginning to doubt that he would make it downstairs at all today.

When she heard him leave, Lena opened her eyes and smiled. _Good guy—1, evil bad guy—0,_ she thought. Apparently the sight of her in skimpy modern workout clothes was enough to do the trick.

Hal managed to get himself in hand and was just leaving the loo when she came down the hallway toward him from the studio, her workout apparently over. Lena's eyes widened as she noticed that the curse had darkened significantly since last night. It lay like a red veil across his skin and made it obvious to her that she had spent too much time away from him. _Damn!_ She stopped at the door to her room and asked, "Any hot water left?"

"Plenty," Hal snapped as he quickly averted his eyes from her way-too-close-to-nude body and moved into his room. Now that he knew of their history, she was much more desirable than he could easily tolerate, and he found himself yearning for her oversized t-shirts and jeans.

Suddenly Hal smelled and heard a group of children running down the street and, caught with his defenses down, he manifested and charged the window. He intended to break the glass and keep on going. She followed in a flash and shoved him onto his overstuffed chair as a mean of halting his impetus. He leaped up, raging, and charged her. She deflected him and threw him against the wall next to the fireplace. He bounced off and landed on his hands and one knee, quickly regained his balance, and rose to his feet in the middle of the floor. She waited, midway between door and window, for his next move.

"Please. Cover. Yourself." He spoke through gritted teeth.

Lena pulled the bedspread off his bed and wrapped it around herself like a toga. She waited silently and watched him carefully as the curse that she had allowed to reclaim him fought to stay in control. She held out her hand like a traffic cop signaling for a stop. He set his palm against hers and gradually relaxed.

"Thank you," he said at last. "Thank you for stopping me."

"You're welcome," she replied. "I still need to shower."

"Of course. Give me a minute." They waited until Hal nodded that he was ready. Lena saw the curse fading to a pale pink veil and agreed that he was safe. They walked together from his room to hers, where he waited while she gathered her clean clothes and phone. She checked it as they walked together down the hallway to the bathroom.

"Text from Tom. AOK."

"I thought the house was quiet. They've already left for work?" Hal replied as they paused at the bathroom door.

"Yes, they were going to move furniture out of some rooms this morning." They both smiled at the thought of Tom trying to keep up with Alex on that job. His strength and stamina, while impressive, was no match for her ability to rent-a-ghost large objects.

"What do you need?" she asked Hal before entering the bathroom. It was the same question she asked countless times a day, sometimes out loud and sometimes with a look or a touch. It was her way of checking to make sure he was safe. He had missed it over the past several hours.

He replied, "I'll just lurk here in the hallway until you're finished." He sat down and leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door.

"I'll put this back on your bed as soon as I'm done in the shower," she said as she ran a hand over the bedspread-toga.

"It will need to be laundered," Hal said quietly. "It—carries your scent."

She frowned. "Do I stink?"

"No, quite the contrary," Hal replied. He reached out and brushed his long, slender fingers gracefully across the bedspread where it touched the floor. "I would find it difficult to rest tonight if it isn't laundered first." He spoke simply, not looking up at her.

Lena didn't waste any time in the bathroom. She was mad at herself for being stupid and petty, for putting Hal in a treacherous position, and for wasting energy on payback for a 500-year-old breakup when so much was at stake. If he had reached those children it would have been her fault as much as his. Lena gave herself a stern talking-to and came to the conclusion that she needed to stop being a vengeful bitch, put on her big girl pants, and start taking care of business.

Hal was waiting where she had left him and rose with his singular grace when she opened the bathroom door. She was fully dressed in dark jeans, a t-shirt with the Tardis on the front, and canvas shoes. She carried the bedspread and her own dirty clothes in a wicker basket. "Ready to head downstairs?" she asked.

"I'd like to do my calisthenics at some point, but that can wait," he replied. They went down the back stairs to the new laundry room with Hal leading. He didn't go first because he thought he should be the leader but because it was proper etiquette for the man to lead when going downstairs with a lady, so he could catch her should she trip. He was charmingly old-fashioned in ways that modern women might not recognize or appreciate. Lena predated modern etiquette and remembered thinking that it had been a welcome improvement in the area of social niceties, so she both recognized and appreciated it in Hal.

He stood several feet away as she got the bedspread started in the wash. "You are a shape-changer? You had suggested as much, but I thought you might have been joking." Hal spoke carefully.

"Yes, it's part of my gift. Angels can change their appearance, you know, in order to be acceptable to humans they meet."

As they moved into the kitchen and began their usual breakfast routine, now in place through ease and repetition, Hal continued the conversation. "It is a rare gift."

"Yes, very few of us have it. You have to have angel on both sides of the family, which has been forbidden."

"Is this your natural form?" he asked as he set the table in the kitchen for two and began to make his tea.

"No, this is the camouflage I put on when I approached the television station. I've kept it because you all are used to seeing me this way." She measured coffee beans into a grinder and started on her coffee.

"Is she-?"

"No, she isn't either. I rarely show my true form to people."

"Isn't that challenging?"

"Not really, I've done it so often that it has become second nature." She paused for a moment. "I do tend to assume the appearance of other incarnations of myself when I think of them. Comes from living alone, I guess. Kind of like walking around the house in your underwear."

They prepared for breakfast together as they did every day. They had begun to move in comfortable familiarity through their days, although Hal was always conscious that her presence had a particular purpose and Lena was always conscious that she was near the vampire who had destroyed her people. The sharpness of those thoughts had worn off some with each day, but this morning there was an increase in tension between them.

They had just sat down to eat when Hal felt a change in the air in the room; it was the same effervescence he had felt with Lena. A casually-dressed man with long white-gold hair pulled back at the nape of his neck appeared midway through the swinging doors to the dining room. He spoke to Lena in a formal tone, in a language Hal didn't understand. The man had a commanding presence in spite of the fact that he resembled an aging hippy, and Lena's immediately respectful attitude toward him told Hal that this was someone important.

He watched as Lena jumped up, hurried to the man, and returned his salutation in the same language. It was unlike any that Hal had ever heard; in fact, he wondered if it was even from this world. The man held up his hand, then lowered it for Lena to grasp. She bowed her head slightly as she kissed his hand. She was clearly pleased to see him so Hal didn't think he had reason to fear what was probably some kind of immortal being who had dropped without warning into the house.

Hal had risen from the table when Lena did, and he remained standing with a neutral expression on his face. He could feel something akin to an electrical current moving through the room, similar to what he had felt when Lena manifested, which was another indication that the visitor wasn't human.

Before she saw him, Lena heard her grandfather Raphael speak in the old language. "I don't want him to know that I'm your grandfather. He would figure out that you are the Nephilim Victrix*. We'll keep that to ourselves."

"Whatever you say," she replied as she hurried to him for a hug. She was stopped by his formal manner.

"We'll let him know who I am, though. Let's do the bit where I'm intimidating," Raphael said as she accepted and kissed his hand, rolling her eyes at him because she knew Hal couldn't see it.

"You never pull that one off, you old power monger."

Lena turned toward Hal as she returned the conversation to English. "Please allow me to introduce you." She guided her grandfather toward the table like an honored guest. "Raphael, archangel of the host of heaven, this is Lord Hal Yorke, vampire Old One. Lord Yorke, this is Raphael, the progenitor of my bloodline."

"Please. It's just Hal," he said quickly, before the archangel could say anything about the origin of his title.

Raphael extended his hand. "Hal." He waited a moment as Hal hesitated, unsure of the protocol when meeting a member of the heavenly realm. A kiss on the hand? A bow? An automatic stake in the heart and a swift exit?

"Just a handshake will do." Raphael answered Hal's unspoken question. They shook hands briefly.

"You are welcome in my home, Raphael. Will you join us for breakfast?"

"No thank you, just a cup of coffee if you don't mind," Raphael spoke as he moved to the empty chair at the table, his back to the window.

"Black, right?" Lena was fixing his cup.

"As Lucifer's heart," Raphael said with a wry smile as she placed the cup in front of him. Lena sat down and the men followed.

"How is old Black Balls these days?" Lena asked.

Hal nearly choked on a sip of tea at her language. He frowned at her disapprovingly as Raphael answered, "Mad at you, I'd imagine. You broke his favorite toy. And a few thousand other assorted demons."

"He has plenty more to play with," she replied before digging into her breakfast.

Hal also began eating. It occurred to him that he was sitting at table with creatures who could easily obliterate him, but as they didn't seem inclined to do so, he decided to forge ahead before the toast and eggs got cold.

"Excellent job on Caedis, by the way," Raphael spoke as he sipped his coffee. "Michael thought he might have to jump in and rescue you there for a minute, but you handled it beautifully. Got some good help from your housemates, too." He nodded his approval at Hal.

"Was he glad to see that I was okay?"

"I think he was more disappointed that you didn't need him to join the fight."

"He is continually disappointed that I don't need him to join the fight. He should be used to it."

Hal kept quiet and listened, and his awe of Lena grew as the conversation continued. However powerful or influential he may have been during the course of his long life, it was a pittance compared to the everyday majesty of the woman sitting at breakfast with an archangel talking about destroying a thousand demons. Without help from another archangel who may be a little jealous of her.

"He's the commander of the host of heaven," Raphael reminded her. "He's a warrior. Of course he loves battle."

"Michael loves battle because the lines are clearly drawn. Right and wrong, good and bad, black and white. He doesn't do well with nuances and shades of grey. He doesn't understand humans; we are too complex for him."

"You know him well," Raphael said.

Hal recalled that the woman across the table was his former lover, and some of Nastusia's more unique qualities now made sense in the light of his understanding of what she truly was. Nastusia really had been stronger than death, and more powerful than he could have imagined. Perhaps he should be grateful that she had bothered with him at all, a peasant boy with no name. A king wouldn't have been worthy to be her consort.

"Are you here to warn me about Lucifer?" Lena asked between bites, "or about Michael?"

Raphael replied, "You've been in the game long enough to know how to take care of yourself with Lucifer." He took a sip of coffee. "No, I'm just checking in on the new endeavor you two have begun. How is it going?"

Hal frowned. Apparently their activities were being monitored in a way that he hadn't considered. He should probably apologize for nearly eating those children earlier. He opened his mouth to speak.

"It was going fine, until I fucked it up just now," Lena answered. Ignoring Hal's surprised look, she continued. "I left Hal alone too long, I was inconsiderate of him, and I allowed the blood curse to regain control."

"You can't blame yourself—" Hal protested, but she cut him off.

"Of course I can. I ignored you. I put my own interests ahead of yours."

"You just wanted to dance," Hal said. "You should be able to do that without being tethered to me all the time." He was frustrated and embarrassed by his dependency on her, and it showed in his tone of voice.

"What I want or should be able to do isn't the issue," she answered. "The most important thing is to keep you from killing. Everything else is secondary. It's just not always easy to subjugate my will to the situation."

Raphael spoke up. "You are trying to do a very difficult thing, both of you. My dear, there are those in the family who fear for your safety. They worry that spending too much time with a vampire will lead you into dark ways and put your soul at risk. They would rather see you give up, or see Hal destroyed, than to have this experiment continue."

"Tell Michael he can kiss my ass," Lena said flatly.

"That's my girl," Raphael smiled. "So, have you begun to forgive Hal yet?"

"No I haven't—for fuck's sake, Raphael! For three centuries you've been shoving this forgiveness thing down my throat! I don't want to forgive him, I want to make him suffer for what he did to us."

At her words Hal froze, then slowly sat as far back in his chair as possible and looked at her. He had forgotten the ferocity of her anger against him.

"How's that working for you?" Raphael calmly sipped his coffee.

"It isn't," she said as she slumped back in her chair. "And I feel like shit right now."

She turned to Hal, gulped, and forced herself to speak. "I owe you an apology. I didn't just ignore you. This morning I intentionally taunted you, wound you up. It was a mistake and I'm sorry."

Hal was silent for a moment at the realization of what she was admitting. She had planned for him to see her in circumstances that were bound to arouse him. Had she planned to use his memories of her against him? Did she know what he had dreamed?

"I know what you think of me," he said with quiet dignity. "You have made it quite clear that you are not here on my behalf, but on behalf of the world you are protecting me from. You don't owe me an apology any more than a jailer owes an apology to an unruly prisoner."

"Is that what I am to you? Your jailer?" She thought for a moment. "I thought we were in this together—until today." She buried her face in her hands, embarrassed by her own behavior. "Shit! Aw, shit!" She turned to Hal, red-faced. "I'm so sorry, Hal. I won't do that to you again."

"Let me give you some advice," Raphael said, "some ideas that may help you both. First, I know that you have a history together that has caused tension between you. I suggest that, for the sake of what is happening here, you both do your best to put the past behind you and concentrate on the present."

"Agreed," Lena replied quietly. "We can't repeat the past Hal, this time we have to stick it out. No leaving. No quitting."

Hal looked at her, then at Raphael. He nodded his agreement.

"One more thing, Lovely. I'd like you to consider applying the principle of grace to your situation here."

"Grace?" Hal was puzzled. As far as he could tell, Lena had plenty of grace already.

"Grace as in unmerited favor or mercy," she explained.

"I don't understand what you are saying," Hal said as he looked from Lena to Raphael for an explanation.

"I know that grace usually comes with forgiveness," Raphael ignored Hal's interruption. "Sorry I keep using the f-word. I know you are tired of it, so let's just put that idea aside. I want you to try extending grace to Hal instead. Favor him. It may help you both."

"Favor me? What?" Hal was confused. He had received favors from women, but he couldn't believe that an archangel would be suggesting that kind of favor.

Once again Raphael ignored Hal. He took Lena's hands in his own and continued, "My dear child, I know that your plan is to give yourself to this—man—to be his guardian, his protector, for as long as he remains above the soil. I want more than that for you. I want you to be happy. I want your soul to fly with joy. I want to look at you and not see the shadow of hatred in your eyes. That, to me, is the most important thing."

"I'm doing the best I can. I'm here, aren't I? Maybe someday the rest will follow."

Hal tried again. "I still don't understand what you are telling her to do." He had never heard of the gift of grace. He had known several women named Grace, he had even been given one as a gift at a dinner party, but he was pretty sure that wasn't the same thing.

"Let me ask you something, Lena. Will there be furniture in your dance studio?" Raphael seemed to be changing the subject, but she knew better.

"No, why would there be?"

"For Hal. If he is to wait for you while you dance, he should at least have a chair."

"I can sit on the floor, really, it's no bother," Hal interrupted the conversation again.

"That's not the point," Raphael said, finally addressing him directly. "Lena needs to do more than tolerate you, Hal. She needs to be considerate of your needs, your interests, at all times, in all ways. She needs to put you ahead of herself in every activity in which you both are involved, and she needs to choose what is best for you rather than what is best for her every time. That is grace."

"That's absurd!" Hal got up abruptly and took his dishes to the sink. What Raphael had described as grace was the attitude that Hal typically demanded from the women he brought into his life, and grace had nothing to do with Hal's demands. This was different. This was Lena. He couldn't tolerate the idea of the most magnificent woman he had ever met being forced into a position of servitude to his needs. The idea was obscene, horrifying.

Lena watched him go. "Well, shit." She turned to her grandfather. "Did you see this mess coming?"

"I considered the possibility that you might struggle a bit. You are very strong-willed, and you don't change your mind easily. I don't think that came from my side of the family," he added in a whisper, leaning in while Hal's back was turned.

"My gifts are fighting and healing. The gentler gifts aren't part of my angel heritage."

"You seemed to have mastered dancing, and it isn't part of your angel heritage." Raphael smiled at her. "I have faith in you, Lovely. I always have."

Hal appeared at the table and gave Lena the 'are you finished' look. She leaned back and let him take her dishes.

"He has better manners than you," Raphael observed.

"He does. When he's not killing people," she added lightly. Hal threw her a look and she smiled at him. "What? You know it's true." He turned his back on her and began the washing up.

"You've killed more people than he has," Raphael reminded his granddaughter. Hal whipped around from the sink and stared at Lena; his marigolds dripped soapy water onto the kitchen floor. He didn't think anyone could top his numbers.

"There's a difference between meting out justice and killing for fun," she said.

"Yes, there is. It is the knife edge between you and the monsters you destroy."

Lena looked at Hal as her grandfather spoke. Hal met her look briefly, then turned back to the dishes, his head spinning with all that he had heard.

Raphael changed the subject. "One more thing, a message from your mother."

Lena's eyes softened and she leaned forward in her chair, eager to hear what her first, best, and most beloved advisor might have to say.

"She is proud of what you are doing here. She believes in you and trusts you to see it through." He quoted his daughter, Lena's mother, verbatim. "'Keep doing the right thing and always believe in yourself.'"

His message delivered, Raphael rose to leave. "Thank you for the coffee, but I need to be off. You youngsters have a good day now," he said as he got up from the table, nodded at Hal and walked through the swinging doors. He disappeared before they could close behind him.

Lena joined Hal at the sink and carefully dried and stacked the dishes as he finished washing up.

"Do you get visits from angels regularly?" Hal wanted to know what to expect.

"Raphael visits every so often, sometimes for a social call, sometimes business. Michael only comes on business."

"Michael is…"

"My other progenitor."

"So you are from the Victrix bloodline." He put the clean dishes away, setting them exactly where they belonged.

"Yes," Lena replied as she wiped down the table. She didn't explain that she was, in fact, the Victrix herself, the most powerful Nephilim in history. Her grandfather had advised against it.

Hal took off the marigolds and set them up to dry. "I don't understand what he was warning you about. It's not like vampires and Seraphin Nepos have never lived together. True, circumstances were different…"

"Quite." She cut him off before the conversation got ugly.

With the kitchen tidied, they moved together to get the bedspread out of the wash and onto the line. Hal continued trying to understand what had occurred over breakfast. "Members of your family fear that I will corrupt you. But if you have angel on both sides, doesn't that make you more…good?"

"Everyone has good and bad in them, Hal, even angels. They aren't perfect creatures of pure goodness like in the stories. Lucifer was the most beautiful being in the heavens, second only to the creator. He stood at the right hand of creation and all others were below him. But second place wasn't good enough for him, he made a play for the big throne and got thrown into hell for it. Anyone can fall."

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," Hal nodded as he spoke; he knew the truth in the old saying. They were going back upstairs now, Hal behind Lena as is appropriate for the gentleman, so he could catch the lady should she trip.

As they walked down the hall, Lena confessed, "They have reason to worry, Hal. The vampire curse is the strongest one ever created. It doesn't just give up and go away. I feel it reach for me, test me every time I touch you."

"What! And you didn't tell me!"

"It's okay, I can handle it."

"And if you can't?"

She leaned against the wall, stuck her hands in her pockets, and looked at the floor for a moment. She frowned as she considered how best to make him understand the battle she faced every day. She raised her head and locked eyes with him as she spoke:

"Remember yourself at your worst, Hal. Covered in blood, set up like a king on a mound of the dead, your throne made from the bodies of your victims, eating the hearts of children as your armies feast around you."

She was reciting a piece of his own history back to him. A spasm of horror and delight ran through him as he remembered it all too clearly.

"Now, imagine me at your side." She watched his eyes dilate and darken with desire. "They have reason to be afraid, Hal. We could do more damage to the world than Snow ever dreamed of."

_***Victrix** is a term of my own creation, part of the mythology of this story in particular. Because Lena's grandfather and father were both angels, she is more angel than human, which explains why she can do some things that other Seraphin can't._


	20. Chapter 20 The Doors

_Much thanks to whimsyfox and Saemay for editing and encouragement._

_A definition of terms: __**Nephilim**__ are mentioned historically as being born when angel and human get together. Only the first generation of offspring is Nephilim. There were very few of them because mating between angel and human was banned early in Biblical history._

_S__**eraphin Nepos **i__s a term of my own creation. It means 'angel descendants' and refers to those whose ancestors were angels. Seraphin Nepos have some angel genetics somewhere in their background but that doesn't mean that they have special gifts or powers. Lena considers herself within the category of Seraphin Nepos. She is also Nephilim because her father is an angel, which makes her a first generation offspring._

It was early evening and Tom was just back from a visit to the Sutherland/Riley family. He sat with a frown at the kitchen table; he ran a hand over the scars on his head, an unfinished and forgotten sandwich in front of him.

"What's the matter Tom?" Hal asked as he and Lena entered the kitchen. "Everything all right with Beth and Ben?"

"Oh yeah, they're doin' great," Tom said. "I was thinkin' about Alex. She didn't come along today and she ain't been at work much the last few days."

"She hasn't been here either," Lena said. "She has a secret, apparently. I'll bet that it's a male secret, one she doesn't want us to meet."

"That's what I reckon," Tom said. "I don't like it."

"Nor do I, Tom," Lena said. "I'll see if I can talk to her about it when she gets home."

# # #

Alex found a welcoming committee when she returned to Honolulu Heights that night, one that she neither appreciated nor tolerated.

"I've met a ghost who knows stuff and can teach me stuff, and I'm spending time with him, okay? Now lighten up," she said.

"I want to meet him." Lena was adamant.

"Yeah, well, he doesn't want to meet you. He says it sounds like I live in a nuthouse and I should be glad to get away from it when I can."

"She has a point," Hal said. "Trying to explain this household to anyone and make it sound close to normal would be a challenge."

"I don't care. He comes to me or I go to him," Lena said. "Tomorrow."

"Fine, Nana. I'll bring him over tomorrow after work," said Alex. "I'm supposed to help Tom at the hotel anyway."

"Great!" Tom exclaimed. "The crews miss you when you're gone."

"How can they miss me, Tom? They can't even see me."

"Yeah, but they know you're about. They see you helpin' me move stuff, and you kept that stack of lumber from fallin' on a couple of the carpenters the other day." Tom smiled at Lena. "She's dead helpful. Alex the friendly ghost." He wasn't even trying to make a pun.

"So, what's your young man's name?" Hal asked.

"Byron."

"Not Lord Byron, I hope?" Hal asked, teasing her.

"Ha ha, very funny. No, he's not a Lord anything, he's just a fella who died in 1952 and hasn't found his unfinished business yet," Alex said. "He's a fella that I fancy, so don't screw it up!" She pointed a finger at them all threateningly as she went upstairs.

Byron failed to appear the following evening however. Alex came home alone, slightly crestfallen. He hadn't met her as planned, and she was certain that the prospect of meeting the crazy Honolulu Heights household had scared him away. Lena was ready to hunt Byron down, but Alex asked her for one more day to bring her new friend to them. Lena agreed, more to avoid the nuisance of tracking a ghost with a vampire tagging along than anything.

The housemates had gone to their rooms for the night when Hal and Lena, their doors ajar, heard Alex talking to someone downstairs. It seemed that Byron had changed his mind. Hal pulled on a shirt and called into Lena's room as he passed.

"I'll get Tom. Apparently we get to meet the famous Byron after all."

Lena got up and put on a pair of jeans. She considered changing out of her 'Hand Over the Chocolate and Nobody Gets Hurt' t-shirt, but decided not to bother. Suddenly she felt a rush of evil in the house and heard Alex scream. She instantly manifested fully into her true battle form and took the bullet train to the living room.

The famous Byron, an immaculately dressed young man in argyle and tweed, was shoving Alex through a door where the fireplace should be. He laughed cruelly as he slapped her face in order to break her grasp on him. The men with sticks and ropes grabbed her arms and pulled her into purgatory. Byron slammed the door shut as Lena reached him.

"You're too late!" he crowed triumphantly before he saw what she was.

"Bullshit!" Lena grabbed Byron by the throat with one hand and ripped what she assumed was his door off its hinges with the other hand. She threw the door aside; her actions opened Byron's dark corridor into purgatory and exposed the men with sticks and ropes who were dragging Alex away. The men froze in stunned disbelief as Alex wrestled to free herself from them. Only death could control the doors; only the masters of heaven and hell could negotiate with death. What Lena had done was impossible.

Tom and Hal had heard Alex scream, and they charged into the living room as Byron's door went flying. They didn't dare look at Lena; she had changed into something they could not yet comprehend. Instead they focused on Alex, and without a thought for themselves they ran into the corridor after her.

There was no room for Lena, and Alex didn't need her anyway, she just needed the right tool for the job. Lena threw a long knife down the corridor, making sure it sliced neatly through one of Alex's captors and embedded in the wall by Alex's head. The young ghost reached for it as her captor disintegrated, but others rushed in to grab her and hold her from it.

Tom and Hal threw themselves into the melee and knocked Alex free, which allowed her to wrench the knife from the wall and cut the ropes that held her. She swung it again and injured one of the men; he howled an unnatural howl and dispersed into ash. The others fled, overwhelmed with fear for the first time in their existence.

The three housemates rushed back down the corridor and tumbled over each other as they spilled into their living room. As Alex landed the knife left her hand and appeared in Lena's. They watched as she sheathed it into nothingness, drawn in by the mystery of her weapons and by the terrifying creature she had become.

Lena was nearly seven feet tall, her hair a wreath of red and gold fire around her head, her eyes fire-white. Light and heat radiated and pulsed from her, and her grey wings filled the width of the room. She held Byron like a rag doll in one hand as she picked up his door with the other and tossed it down his corridor.

"**Leave**," she said in an inhuman voice that resonated through the room. The corridor vanished.

"Identify yourself," she commanded as she shook Byron, who was beginning to scorch and char from the heat of her grasp. "Who is your master?"

"Lucifer. The devil," he choked out. Although he was a ghost, he couldn't escape from her grip.

"Tell me your purpose."

"I find ghosts who are bound for a good eternity and send them to my master. Please, let me go!" he pleaded, coughing against the pressure on his throat. "I'll run. I'll leave. You'll never see me again!"

"You send good souls to suffer so you can remain free." Lena stated it as fact, as the reason for his condemnation to come.

"Yes," he gasped as he tugged uselessly at Lena's fingers around his neck.

She held out her arm and roared, "**DOOR!**" and one appeared, not in front of her but on the floor, a great black round iron door with a ring mounted in its center. Smoke and noxious fumes oozed from around it. Byron screamed, begged, clawed at the hand that held him, but to no effect. She casually squeezed his throat shut to stifle his noise.

"Tell your master that my home and my friends are off limits to his minions."

"Who… are…you?" Byron gasped out the words.

"I am Nephilim Victrix."

She pulled open the great door and threw Bryon into the pit, to his master.

She slammed the door shut and said, "**Leave.**" It did.

She heard Hal's shocked voice from the floor near the sectional where they had landed. "Impossible!"

Hal got to his feet and watched Lena warily as she returned to her usual human form. She looked familiar again but maintained an aura of power and danger; she seemed fixed on him and silently monitored his movements; he didn't trust her.

"What are you?" Alex pulled herself shakily to her feet and stared in terror at Lena. "You… you control the doors. How can you do that?"

"What did you say you are?" Tom was also stunned by what he had seen. He turned to Hal. "Hal! What did she say?"

"Nephilim Victrix. The creature we spoke of to Rook, remember Tom?" Hal kept his eyes on Lena and cautiously walked to the end of the sectional as he spoke. He wanted to give himself some open space so he could move quickly if necessary. She said nothing, so Hal continued his explanation. "The name is a title given to the greatest Nephilim who ever lived, the only one of her kind. She was more angel than human, according to the legends. Her mother was Nephilim, half-human, half-angel, and her father an archangel."

Hal leaned against the end of the sectional as he spoke and tried to appear casual and unshaken by Lena's display of her abilities. In truth, he was doing his best to stay upright as he watched her still form, her cold grey eyes locked onto him. Hal finished the mythology of the Victrix for Tom and Alex's benefit.

"It is said that her power was so great that God trembled when she was born. She was the reason for the edict that angel and human never unite again. Hers are the most powerful Seraphin Nepos, angel descendants, in all creation."

Finally Hal spoke directly to Lena in the hope that he would break her terrifying concentration on him. "She was your ancestor. Why would you claim her name and reputation for yourself? Why challenge the devil like that? It was either very brave or very stupid."

"Or I could be telling the truth." Lena gave the vampire a slight smile.

"You're not."

"How do you know?"

"Because the Victrix died over 300 years ago. I was there," he said, then hesitated. "I was… involved."

"Hal, what do you mean, you were involved?" You didn't… you didn't kill her, did you?" Alex shook her head in disgust. "What am I saying? Of course you did."

"I didn't personally kill her, but yes, I participated in the campaign that led to her death."

Lena tilted her head slightly, as if she were looking at an interesting insect pinned to a specimen tray. "Don't you mean 'commanded the forces that butchered her'? I think that would be a more accurate description," she said in a quiet, chilling voice. Hal looked increasingly uncomfortable as she spoke.

Lena walked slowly toward Hal as she continued, an ancient predator toying with her prey. "You led a horde of vampires and humans to the village where she and her family lived. You set them loose to murder, rape, and pillage."

She casually ran a hand down the back of the sofa as she took another step. "Your spies caught the members of her family first, of course. You used them to force her to surrender. You told her that you would turn the humans into vampires and send their souls to the devil if she didn't give herself into your hands." She quivered with rage at the brilliant, brutal threat the vampire had used.

"You forced your least favorite vampire pets to test her blood to make sure she was Nephilim. Did you enjoy watching them explode when the first drops of her blood touched their lips?" Hal nodded in spite of himself. He had found it amusing.

She took another step, and her grey eyes turned diamond-white again as they remained fixed on Hal. He began to slowly back away from her. "You had your men build a platform, a stage on which to torture her. You had her stripped and nailed into place with knives so your men could torment her at will while her family watched. When they had finished you commanded your human soldiers to drain her of her remaining blood so you could use it to poison your enemies." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Waste not, want not."

Lena kept the vampire within reach as she backed him across the room. He would not escape this time. "You had her children tested as well. In fact, every child in the village was brought before you and bitten to test for Nephilim blood so you would know that you had Every. Single. Member. of her family in your grasp."

She glowed now; the rage inside her burned through every pore of her skin. Alex trembled with fear and shock, and Tom stood with her, an arm around her protectively. Neither of them dared intervene between Hal and Lena.

Her wings unfurled and arched across the room to trap him within their steel curves as she continued. "You had your human minions hack her into pieces and throw the pieces into her family's home. They did the same to her Seraphin Nepos children." She paused and wrestled to control herself. "Your men filled the house with kindling and you personally set fire to it; you drank her husband's blood slowly so he could watch them burn."

She had him backed against the wall leading to the kitchen. Lena leaned into him until they nearly touched, the heat of her rage singeing his face as her ice-cold voice finished her story. "Did I leave anything out?"

Hal shook with fear, but he faced her. "No," he whispered. "No."

She put a hand around his throat and lifted him easily from the floor. Her touched seared his skin. "Puny, arrogant vampire. Did you honestly believe you could defeat me? That was my daughter you killed."

Hal felt as if he were being consumed by flames as her eyes raked over him. He felt weak, light-headed. He blacked out as she tossed him across the room, over the dining table and sectional. He landed limply on the sofa as she disappeared.

# # #

Hal came to as Tom gently slapped his face and Alex hovered nearby with burn ointment. He sat up slowly, shaking his head. His throat was on fire. He touched it and winced.

"Here, Hal, let me put this on. It should help," Alex said, as she sat next to him and applied the ointment.

"How long?" he croaked out the words. It hurt to speak.

Tom ran to get him a glass of water as Alex answered. "Just a few minutes."

Hal drank the water and it helped, a little. He asked for another glass and got it. "She may be gone for a long time," he said. "We should put me in the cellar while I'm still willing to go."

"Do you think she's comin' back?" Tom asked.

"I do," Hal said. "She gave her word. But in case she doesn't, Tom, I need you to give me a stake. If worse comes to worst, I'd like to think I can be man enough to save you the job of killing me."

"Calm down, mate. Let's hope it don't come to that," Tom said, but he got one of his best stakes, Conan, and gave it to Hal at the door to the cellar room.

Alex was in tears and blamed herself for getting them all into this mess. "I should have listened to Lena, I should have known better than to trust a stranger. Hal, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"I'm just glad we got you back," Hal said with a brave smile. "We wouldn't have, without her. We should be grateful."

Hal closed himself into the cellar and waited for Tom to lock him in. He turned on the light and sat on the floor, waiting. Tom and Alex sat on the bottom cellar step, also waiting. Because of the soundproofing in the room they couldn't really tell what was happening, so Alex checked in on Hal regularly.

The first time Hal sat with his back against the wall, and he smiled at her concern. "I'm alright Alex."

The second time, he was in the center of the room doing press-ups. He didn't interrupt his count to speak to her.

The third time, Hal was pacing while muttering musical lyrics. He didn't notice her.

A few minutes later they heard him fling himself against the door and rattle it to see if it would open. They heard a chuckle, and Hal began to sing the ubiquitous "You'll Never Walk Alone"* in a clear and bitter tone, and they knew their friend was gone.

# # #

Lena needed to kill something, fast. She disappeared from Honolulu Heights with one focus: demons. They would be easy to find. She reappeared just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, over an abandoned warehouse-turned-entertainment-venue where the night was in full swing. Battered and scarred pit bulls waited in filthy cages or on huge chains as their owners wagered on their skills and negotiated for their next fight. There were three arenas going at once; the losers of each battle were viciously put down by their owners. A woman was being brutalized in the back room. Demons circled overhead, feasting on the cruelty that flowed in waves from the activity below.

"This will do for a start," she said, as she drew her swords and destroyed the outliers. She tore the roof off the building and worked her way down, took out the demons who fled their human hosts first, then chased down and killed the ones who were firmly attached to the humans who had given them entry. The less corrupt humans she allowed to escape. Midway through the slaughter she found herself singing "Love is a Battlefield"* and laughed at the wretched irony of it.

Within minutes the remaining dogs were free, the building was ablaze, and Lena was setting the battered woman down at a safe distance. She cradled her as she drew the woman's injuries from her. She took them all, the beating, the burns, the vicious penetration of rape, and let the pain roll through her and dissipate. Finally the woman opened her eyes, haunted by the horror she had endured.

"I can take that too." Lena soothed her, rested a hand on her forehead, and drew the woman's terror, anger, and humiliation into herself. Soon it too, was gone.

Sirens sounded in the distance. The authorities had nothing left to do but put out the fire and sort out the burned bits of humanity. Lena had found plenty of flammables in the old warehouse.

Lena scooped the woman into her arms and flew her home.

"What are you? My guardian angel?" the woman whispered. They were her first words.

"Believe what you like, but don't tell anyone else unless you want a trip to the asylum," Lena said, and she was gone.

She focused on demons again because their evil was easy to sense, the souls they corrupted like beacons to her nature. She reappeared in the midst of a group of pedophiles auctioning their child victims to the highest bidders. They lasted less than a minute.

She gathered the five children to her; the oldest may have been 9 or 10. She wrapped them in her blood-spattered wings and sang a soft song in the old language as she drew their horrors from them. She handed a telephone to the oldest so he could call for the police. She didn't worry about the story they would tell. She was gone.

Several thousand miles and several hundred human deaths later Lena had dispatched enough monsters to calm herself down for the return to the one monster she wasn't allowed to destroy, the one she no longer wanted to destroy. She refused to consider why.

She had also taken enough human anguish into herself to atone once again, just a bit, for being absent when her daughter needed her the most.

She had been gone just over an hour.

Lena took a quick dip in the Irish Sea to wash off the blood and ash before zeroing in on the new bathroom for her final stop. She peeled off her salt-water soaked clothes and stepped into the shower for a quick wash. Alex was suddenly in the bathroom with her.

"Where have you been? Hal is in the cellar! He had us put him in the cellar! With a stake!"

"Has he used it yet?" Lena asked as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair.

"I don't know!"

"Well, go tell him not to, you idiot," Lena replied coolly. "Tell him I'll be there in a bit."

Alex disappeared. Lena stepped out of the shower and quickly wrapped her hair in a towel. She dressed and grabbed a comb on her way to the cellar. Tom was sitting midway down the cellar stairs.

"He's gone," Tom said.

Lena's hearing was sharper than Tom's. She heard whistling and the movement of feet from the cellar. Hal was clearly not gone. He was working on his dance moves to the tune of "Cabaret."*

She went to the cellar door as Alex joined Tom on the step. Alex took Tom's hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. They were worried about their friend.

"I was there, you know. In Berlin," Hal said as he sensed Lena's presence. "We loved the war. Hitler provided us with limitless banquets during the course of his endeavors. We grew fat and lazy from the lack of hunting for our own food."

"I can imagine. Except for the fat part. You are too vain to allow yourself to get out of shape," she replied.

Hal chuckled."My lady." She suspected that he was bowing sarcastically on the other side of the door.

"Pet."

"Are we back to that? I suppose we may be." Hal's voice was just across the door from her now. He casually leaned against it, his back to her. "I have returned to my old self, although the feeling is waning with the reintroduction of your influence."

"I hope we are not back to that, Hal." She leaned her back against the door as well. "I hear you have a stake with you."

"Yes. Conan, I believe is its name. It has been keeping me company in your absence. It is a woeful dance partner."

"How are you?"

"Still here, in spite of my best intentions. I had thought to stake myself and rid you of me before your return. It seems I am a coward, after all." She heard the bitterness in his voice.

"It isn't cowardice to keep your word."

"Excuse me?"

"No quitting, remember? We agreed."

"We also said no leaving."

"I didn't leave you, Hal. I'm right here. I just had to go let off some steam."

"Because you could no longer be decent. Did things get out of hand, as you said they do when you can no longer be decent?"

"You mean, did people die? Yes."

"Vampires?

"No, I hunted demons. They are easier for me to find, and I needed a quick kill tonight."

"Ah, a quick kill," he said with a touch of humor in his voice. "I could have used one as well."

"If we killed for the same reason I would have brought you with me," she said.

"If we killed for the same reason you wouldn't be here," he reminded her.

"True." She took the towel off her head and began trying to comb her damp hair.

Hal felt her influence settling him, but he needed her voice. He didn't know why. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure she was still there, still with him.

"You've showered," he said. Her scent was reaching him.

"I took a dip in the sea to wash off the blood and ash, then showered to wash off the salt water. Now if I can just get a comb through this hair—" she tugged at it impatiently. "Damn it!"

"I could do that for you," he said. "You were always so impatient."

"Or I could just cut it off and save myself the trouble."

"Why don't you?"

"I do, once in a while, but I don't really like it. I usually keep it long. Vanity, I guess." She slid down to sit on the floor with her back to the door. He followed on his side. They continued the conversation that drew them both back toward their humanity.

"When you manifested—was that your true form?" Hal hoped that it wasn't. She was much too frightening.

"The really pissed-off version of it, yes," she said as she worked the tangles out of her hair.

"Your hair turned to flames."

"I'm naturally a red-head."

"That explains the temper," Hal said, gently teasing her.

"Watch it Fangboy," she replied.

"You were well over 6 feet tall."

"Yeah, that happens sometimes in when I'm in battle mode. I'm actually only about 5-foot-6. My usual height."

"Your eyes? What color are they naturally? Not white lightning I hope."

"Brown. Like my mother."

"And your daughter," Hal affirmed. He remembered her clearly, remembered the fire in her brown eyes; they had remained fixed on him throughout her torture.

"Yes, like my daughter," Lena said quietly.

"I feel as though I should apologize for what I have done to you, for what I did to your family." Hal also spoke quietly. "I can think of no words that are appropriate, however. They are too weak, and would make a mockery of your pain."

"Maybe you could make me a card. I saw some markers and glitter in a desk drawer."

"Yes, of course. I should have thought of that. A sorry-I-slaughtered-your-family card is just the thing."

"I wonder how many of those you could hand out, if you chose," she said.

"Thousands. You?" he asked.

"I would need a sorry-I-slaughtered-the-irredeemable-beast-in-your -midst card. Thousands of them."

Tom and Alex huddled on the cellar stairs and listened to Lena's side of their conversation and what little they could make out of Hal's. They drew closer together, looking to each other for comfort as the true nature of their housemate became apparent. They had not considered that Lena was also a prolific killer.

"What were you hunting?" Hal asked. "When the genocide started. I asked Bernard but he said that you had never told anyone."

"I was hunting the brothers, the founders of your species. The first vampires."

"Our legends say that they live in a secret temple deep in the mountains of Asia, surrounded by guards and servants whose only job is to feed them and keep them safe. It is closed to the world, and each generation is allowed to breed enough children for the next generation to maintain its watch."

"Your legends were correct. That's what made them so hard to find," she said grimly.

"But you found them."

"Yes. Are you older than Hetty? You may quite possibly be the oldest vampire left, Hal."

"I am older than Hetty by about 50 years, although suddenly I am uncomfortable with discussions of my age."

"I know how you feel," Lena said wryly. She continued, "I guess it levels the score between us, in a weird kind of way. I was killing them while you were killing my daughter and her family."

"It does not come close to leveling things between us," Hal said. "I didn't know them or love them. And I'm sure their deaths were quicker than your daughter's."

"I don't tend to drag those things out, so yes, I'm sure they were."

"Whereas I derive great delight in being as cruel as possible for as long as possible to my prisoners."

"Not your finest feature, Hal."

"After spending time under your influence, my lady, I would have to agree with you," he said.

"You know, if I had just had the sense to track you down and keep you from killing a couple of centuries ago, we'd be a lot better off by now," she said.

"I don't believe either of us was ready for this a couple of centuries ago," Hal said. "I was focused on becoming a vampire of legend and you were too angry to be on the same continent with me, let alone in the same room."

"Sometimes I think we're still not ready," she replied. "Speaking of ready, are you ready for me to open the door?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"Are you sure? Your voice sounds odd. Your fangs aren't out, are they?"

"No. I have a burn on my throat. It is making me a bit hoarse."

"What?" Lena unlocked the door, threw it open, and stepped back to allow Hal to exit.

He stopped in the doorway to the cellar room. She could see the curse, a pale pink blush across his features. She could see deep burns on his throat where she had choked him earlier. They were not healing. She reached out to take the injury from him, but he stepped back.

"Don't touch me."

"Hal, I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know what you want to do, you want to heal the burns, to take the pain yourself," he said. "I cannot allow it."

"Excuse me?" Clearly Hal had forgotten who was in charge in their relationship.

"What kind of creature are you?" he asked her. "After everything I have done to you, everything you know about me, how can you reach out to me in kindness? What kind of creature can do such a thing, would want to do such a thing, would want to heal an injury to a monster like me?"

"I would, Hal. I'm the same creature as I was yesterday. I knew who you were and what you had done before I came here. Your discovery of it doesn't change who I am. Now stop being a drama queen and let me heal your throat," Lena moved toward him resolutely. "I'm not letting you out of the cellar until I do."

He backed away from her shaking his head. He wanted to feel the pain, to be reminded of what he had done to her, to be punished.

"Hal, it hurts me to see my fingerprints burned into your throat. Please let me heal you." Lena tried cajoling as she backed him into a corner, literally.

He could see from the look in her eyes that she was telling the truth, so he acquiesced and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see the pain on her face as she took the burns into herself. He felt her hand gently move into the position she had held him in earlier and he felt the pain leave him. He waited a moment until he heard her step away from him before opening his eyes.

"Thank you," he said.

"You're welcome," she said. "How long did it take before you started to go nutso down here?"

"About 30 minutes. Slightly longer than I expected," he replied as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. Tom and Alex hopped up and moved ahead of them into the first floor hall.

"That's a good sign. The curse continues to weaken," she said.

"Not that I would turn down a goblet of freshly drawn blood if you offered it to me," he said as they continued toward the upstairs and their rooms.

"There's a reason I washed off before coming home," she said. "I didn't want you trying to lick me clean."

They stopped at the door to Hal's room. "What do you need?" Lena asked.

Hal put out his hand like a traffic cop signaling a stop. Lena met him, palm to palm. Their fingers curled over each other's hands and locked them together. Hal felt his body hum as she calmed him once again. Her blood sang to him softly, sweetly, an alluring melody. He found himself looking at the pulse in her neck, and she noticed.

"Bad idea, Hal."

"Still tempting, and a sweeter death than Conan would provide." He had left the stake in the cellar.

"I don't want you dead."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't want you dead." She met his look honestly as she pulled away from him. "I was so angry, so very angry tonight. Three hundred years of rage exploded out of me and when I got you in my hand I wanted to rip you to shreds and send us both to hell." Her grey eyes began to lighten and glow with the memory of her rage. She blinked, took a breath, and returned to herself. "I didn't stop on my account, I stopped on yours. I'm not quite ready to let the devil have you, after all."

Hal had no answer. He simply stared at her, incredulous.

"I'm sorry I hurt you, Hal," she said softly, looking at the floor.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," he replied. "Good night." Hal closed the door to his room as she moved away. He undressed and lay awake on his bed, trying to fathom the beautiful, terrifying, generous, murderous creature that she was.

# # #

Tom and Alex stayed safely in the kitchen until they heard Hal and Lena go to their rooms.

"Tom, she's as bad as he is," Alex said. "She's just as much of a killer."

"I reckon so. Maybe that's what it takes to control him," Tom replied.

Alex began to tremble again. Now that Lena was home and Hal was safe, she could relax enough to realize how very close she had come to a very bad end that evening.

"She controls the doors, Tom. How can she do that? She could destroy any of us, in a snap."

"But she didn't, Alex, she saved you. Me and Hal couldn't have done it, we couldn't have gotten you back by ourselves." Tom put a hand comfortingly on Alex's shoulder and she stepped into him and wrapped her arms around him with a sob. He patted her back awkwardly. "It's okay, 'Lex. It's over now, ain't it? Everything is back to normal."

"I'm scared, Tom. Like, buried alive again scared. What if the devil was after me? Maybe because of Hatch? What if they come back, Tom, the men with sticks and ropes? They've tried twice now, and you know what they say, third time's the charm." Alex found herself practically blubbering into Tom's ear, which was highly unusual for her. She didn't blubber.

"C'mon Alex, I reckon it'll be okay. If they come back, we'll take care of 'em, won't we?" Tom tried desperately to comfort his friend while feeling guilty for enjoying her hug. "Look, let's watch some telly and forget about it. I'll stay with ya for a while, for all night if ya want. As mates," he added quickly.

"Aw, thanks Tom, that's sweet of you, but I know you need some sleep before work tomorrow. Maybe I can stay in your room tonight? As mates, yeah?" Alex couldn't face the long dark hours alone.

"Yeah," Tom said. "Yeah, we can do that."

Tom wore his shorts to bed. Alex sat in his desk chair until he was settled, then she carefully laid down on top of the covers next to him.

"Thanks, Tom. You really are the best of us all," she said quietly.

"I love you, Alex. You're my family," Tom replied, because it was dark and he was feeling protective and brave.

She slipped a hand through his and kissed his cheek, and he felt her lips for real on his skin. "Thanks Tom, you're my family too."

*Rodgers and Hammerstein, from the musical **Carousel. **The song includes these lyrics:

_Walk on through the wind  
Walk on through the rain  
Though your dreams be tossed and blown_

_Walk on walk on with hope in your heart_  
_And you'll never walk alone_

*written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman, sung by Pat Benatar. The song includes these lyrics:

_We are strong  
No one can tell us we're wrong  
Searching our hearts for so long  
Both of us knowing  
Love is a battlefield_

_You're begging me to go_  
_Then making me stay_  
_Why do you hurt me so bad_  
_It would help me to know_  
_Do I stand in your way_  
_Or am I the best thing you've had_

_Believe me_  
_Believe me_  
_I can't tell you why_  
_But I'm trapped by your love_  
_And I'm chained to your side_

_We are young_  
_Heartache to heartache we stand_  
_No promises_  
_No demands_  
_Love is a battlefield_

*from the musical of the same name, playwright Joe Masteroff, composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb. **Cabaret** is set in Berlin in 1931, as the Nazis are coming into power.


	21. Chapter 21Through the Looking Glass

Tom slept quite well that night and was pleased to find Alex was still with him when he woke up in the morning. The alarm jerked them both into a sitting position.

"Bloody hell, Tom, is that thing loud enough?" Alex hopped off of his bed and stretched, out of habit.

"Sorry Alex, I have to make sure it wakes me up," Tom apologized as he slapped the alarm to turn off the din.

"You want some breakfast? I'll go start somethin' for you, yeah?" she said with a smile.

"Yeah," Tom answered with a smile of his own, and she popped out of the room. Tom dressed for work and headed for breakfast. He saw Lena also dressed and waiting at the door to Hal's room. It looked like things were back to normal. Maybe Lena wouldn't mind answering a question or two once they got downstairs.

"So, you can change what you look like?" Tom asked Lena as she and Hal joined him at the table. Alex was cooking for the crowd this morning, to show her appreciation for last night.

"Good morning, Tom, and yes I can," Lena replied.

"Um, I don't suppose you was the bloke who loaned me a fiver at the Aldi checkout t'other day, was you?" Tom asked.

"Nope. But I could be if I chose. Why?" she asked.

"Well, how am I gonna find 'im to pay 'im back?"

"I don't know, Tom. Why did you need a fiver? Don't I pay you enough?" Lena was concerned that she may have neglected her staff at the Barry Grand.

"I don't know, Lena. I never been a manager before," Tom said. "I filled up Hal's car so I could see the Rileys and it run me short, that's all."

"Hal, why didn't you tell me Tom was using your old Mercedes?" Lena frowned at Hal as she spoke. She wasn't entirely sure his car was road-worthy.

"What else would he drive?" Hal asked, surprised by the question.

"There's not a car at the hotel? No, of course there's not, I knew that. Damn it, I was going to take care of that," Lena said, now frowning at herself. "Tom, I've neglected you and the hotel. I'll look into your salary today and arrange for a car to be sent to the Barry Grand. The hotel should have vehicles available for staff use."

"You might want to consider getting Tom some official identification and a driving license as well," Hal said coolly. "I'm sure you have people who take care of that sort of thing."

"I do, as a matter of fact." Lena eyed Hal speculatively. "You should have them too. The photo identification may be tricky."

"Indeed."

"We have the photo of that portrait of you. Maybe we can use it to run a facial recognition program and find your doppelganger," she said, then smacked herself on the forehead. "I'm an idiot. I'll just do it myself."

"What do you mean?" Hal asked.

"I'll just be you for the photo. I'm a shape changer, remember? We'll use the studio; it's about the only room that isn't covered in hideous wallpaper. I need a plain surface to stand in front of, and I'll need to borrow one of your shirts."

"Are you saying that you can take my form and be photographed as me?" Hal asked.

"Yes, that's what I'm saying," she replied. "I haven't taken another person's shape for a while, but it shouldn't be that hard, especially with you right here for me to look at."

"I have to see this," Tom said with a grin. "Alex, we're gonna be late for work today."

Hal didn't say any more, but he seemed to be giving the idea some serious consideration. They all finished breakfast quickly and went to Hal's room, where he handed Lena his good suit and a white dress shirt to put on.

"Seriously?" she asked.

"Yes," Hal replied. "If you are going to be me, I want you to look my best. It has been quite a while since I've had a portrait done."

"In that case, I'll need a pair of your boxers too," she replied. "Keep the suit, I'll be right back."

She took his white shirt and boxers to her room and returned shortly with them on, her ponytail gone, hair hanging loosely around her shoulders. As Lena moved to stand directly in front of him, Hal couldn't help thinking that she looked like an actress in a romance movie, a woman wearing her lover's clothes, hair still mussed from the night's activities. The shadows of her nipples showed through his white shirt. She hasn't asked for a vest. The corner of his mouth twitched in a secret smile.

Lena noticed the twitch and the area where his gaze lingered and looked down. "Shit," she said, blushing slightly, and she quickly transformed as Hal asked her if she wanted to borrow a vest. Before he had finished the question, Hal was receiving a withering look from his own face and hearing her say in his voice with her accent, "Thanks for the heads' up. And yes, I'd like to borrow a 'vest,' although we call them wife-beaters in the States."

"What a ghastly name," Hal said as he got a vest for her.

As she took off Hal's dress shirt and traded it for the vest he held out to her, Lena turned to Tom and Alex, "What do you think? Can I pass for Hal?"

They nodded, speechless. It was unnerving to see two Hals standing together. Alex was especially aware that nearly-naked HaLena looked very much like the real Hal. Apparently Lena had been paying attention.

Hal looked HaLena up and down closely as she pulled the vest over her head; he hid his amazement at her transformation. "I have more body hair," he pointed out.

"I'm not doing body hair for the photo, Hal. I'll be wearing your suit. And don't look too closely at my crotch, okay? I make no guarantees about correct dimensions in that area," she said as she reached for his dress shirt.

"Hmph," Hal said as he handed her the shirt.

Suddenly his eyes narrowed and he grabbed the elastic waist of the boxers, pulling it out so he could look down the front. Lena gasped and nearly jumped back and punched him, but she froze as she realized that he was actually looking at his own 'package'. She blushed bright red as Hal did his visual inspection, with Tom turning pink out of sympathy for her and Alex grinning at them both.

Hal looked from his boxers up to his own startled hazel eyes and red face. "I see you have a good memory," he said with a smirk.

She turned an even deeper shade of red but wasn't about to be outdone. "Really?" she said as she looked down for herself. She had noticed the extra weight in the boxers after the transformation, but this was the first time she had seen that particular part of Hal's anatomy in nearly 500 years. _Damn!_ She thought. _I do have a good memory!_

"I may have been generous," she said out loud. Hal released the elastic on the boxers so they would snap back at her. "Ow, that hurt!" she said, rubbing her belly, which was now occupied by Hal's nicely sculpted muscles.

"Hal, don't do it, mate!" Tom said in alarm, and Lena looked up to see Hal with his hand on the button and zip of his trousers, a determined look on his face. He was clearly prepared to do a full comparison.

"Fine, I concede! I have a good memory, possibly even a conservative one," Lena said as she grabbed Hal's hands to stop him.

"I want to know just when you saw his stuff in the first place," Alex said. "I don't remember hearing about this."

"Yeah," Tom agreed. "What are you getting up to while we are at work?"

"We haven't been 'getting up to' anything since 1514," Hal said with a touch of sarcasm as he handed HaLena his suit trousers to put on. "We knew each other, previously, when I was still human."

Lena added, "I had taken a different form at the time. Hal didn't know of our relationship until recently. I kept it from him." She didn't want Tom and Alex to think that Hal had lied to them or kept a secret from them. Let the blame lay where it should.

"And you still remember?" Alex asked Lena. "Shite, must've been something," she muttered to herself.

The trousers fit perfectly. Hal handed her his belt and got out shoes and socks for her. She sat on the bed and started to put them on, but Hal intervened when it looked like she was putting a permanent crease in his trousers from her awkward attempts. He took the shoe from her hands and knelt in front of her to finish the job for himself. Tom and Alex watched as Hal assisted HaLena into the rest of his suit and tied his tie for her, demonstrating his own fastidious taste.

Finally Hal ran a comb through her hair and declared her acceptable to photograph. He stood back to look at his living, breathing mirror image. He looked pretty good in a suit. Apparently the dream world had been accurate as far as his physical appearance was concerned, which was a relief. HaLena confirmed that Hal had a good idea of what he actually looked like.

They went to the studio and Lena posed while Alex took several photos with Lena's phone, both head shots and full body shots. Hal decided that they weren't taking things seriously enough, so he took over.

He positioned HaLena and fussed with her clothes like a fashion photographer and finally decided that the composition was suitable. He took the phone from Alex and made her show him how to take pictures with it. He even had HaLena change expressions and positions.

"Right, hands in trouser pockets, lean casually against the wall, nonchalant expression please," he directed her. "I said lean, not slouch. I don't slouch. Straighten your spine, please. You are a dancer; surely you can present a good line for the camera." He took a couple of photos and stuck the phone in his pocket.

"Now let's try slightly menacing," he said as he approached her. "Arms crossed, stand up straight, legs slightly apart." He positioned her arms slightly and straightened his suit and hair. "Stern expression please. I said stern, not goggle-eyed. Are you taking this seriously?"

"Not really," she replied.

"Well please do, it isn't like I can check myself in a mirror. This is my chance to see what people have been looking at for the past 5 centuries."

"I didn't realize this suit was that old," she said. Tom and Alex laughed from their safe positions several feet away. Hal got a pained expression on his face, so she relented. "Fine, I'll take it seriously. Show me stern and I'll try to mimic it."

Hal insisted that she also pose in his leather chair in the corner of the studio, so she did that as well. Once again he positioned her and fussed over her, making sure everything looked just so. After the first round of photos he turned to Alex.

"Could we get a snifter of brandy?" he asked her. She just stared at him. "Quickly, please."

Alex looked at Lena, who sighed and nodded. The ghost disappeared and reappeared with a glass of something from the bar. It looked vaguely like brandy. Hal decided that it would do and handed it to HaLena. Next he took his tie off of HaLena and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt, then mussed her hair slightly.

"Now, look as though you're relaxed and enjoying yourself," he ordered her. "Imagine a beautiful woman just out of the shot, admiring you. Show me a look of pleasant anticipation."

"For god's sake, Hal, this isn't a GQ shoot, it's just for a photo ID!" Lena exclaimed. She had finally had enough of playing model.

"I take it you won't do sexy eyes for me, then?" he asked.

"Please tell me you're joking," she answered.

Hal grinned at her. "I am. I just wanted to see how much I could get you to do."

"Hal, you were taking the piss! Aw, that's brilliant!" Alex said, laughing along with Tom.

"You had us all going, mate!" Tom added.

Hal snapped off a couple of shots of HaLena leaping out of the chair and chasing him around the studio before he returned her phone to her. He insisted that she send all of the photos to him immediately and stood watch to make sure she did so.

Alex and Tom left for work, trying very hard to consider it a normal day in spite of what they had just witnessed. Alex the friendly ghost was ready to be back on the job and was looking forward to spending the day with her best mate.

Lena and Hal returned to his room, where she took off Hal's suit and he hung it carefully back in the wardrobe. She left on the shirt, vest, and boxers as she transformed back into herself and returned to her room to change into her own clothes. She brought back the rest of Hal's clothes.

"That was quite possibly the oddest experience I've ever had," Hal said as he took his clothes from her.

"It was a bit strange, even for me," Lena agreed. "I've never done fashion modeling."

They went downstairs. Now that the plumbing part of the renovation was finished, Lena had decided to take a break from construction. The house was, in Hal's mind, blissfully quiet.

"I have a video conference at 10:30 this morning," she said as they set up in the dining room, which also served as their office for the time being. "What about you?"

"Just the usual check-ins from the team. We may have a Hetty sighting in Kiev," Hal replied. "Working on confirmation."

"Really? I'd love to throw her into hell," Lena said with a touch of the predator's growl in her voice.

"I suppose you can do that to anyone you choose," Hal said, remembering the great door she had called into existence.

"Apparently. I never tried it before last night. Thought I'd give it a shot." She shrugged. "Who knew?"

"You didn't know you could do that?" Hal was incredulous.

"When I'm in battle mode I try all kinds of things that I don't know I can do. That 'belief in myself' thing that you think is so amusing," she said. "Come to think of it, I haven't had anything not work yet."

"My god you are terrifying," Hal murmured.

She grinned. "Yeah, so I've been told."

Lena went straight to work getting 'legal' identifications requested for Tom and Hal and fleet vehicles ordered for the Barry Grand. She was still mentally kicking herself for not thinking of it earlier. Apparently Hal had been occupying more of her mind than she realized.

A quick Google search gave her the list of the top 10 best-selling cars in the UK. "Ford Fiesta? Really? Oh Hal, I'm not sure I can see Tom driving a Fiesta."

Hal got up from his chair across from her and looked over her shoulder at the list. He pointed to the Audi A3 and she followed the link to a satisfactory review and enough photos to make her feel comfortable choosing it for Tom and the hotel. Hal agreed and the decision was made.

"Does the hotel need a utility vehicle?" she asked, looking up at him. He had remained standing behind her, following her activity on-screen and secretly watching every move she made. Her delicate grace extended even to her hands on the keyboard. Less than an hour ago those had been his hands. Last night they had burned him and thrown him effortlessly across the room. She was endlessly fascinating.

"I'm not sure it does at present," he replied. "I don't recall feeling at a loss for one. Tom might enjoy having one, though, at least for one night a month."

"Good point," she said. She did another Google and they chose a Land Rover Discovery. Hal returned to his own seat as Lena sent the specs for the new vehicles to her London office, so they could be purchased, licensed, and delivered.

Next up was a check of Tom's salary, which she discovered was sadly inadequate for his current position. A manager's salary should have been automatic; this was an obvious oversight by the team that had handled her purchase of the hotel. It occurred to Lena that Hal had never actually discussed salary with her either. She quietly set them both up with online bank accounts and automatic payroll deposits of amounts that she considered acceptable.

Hal checked his email and discovered a welcome from Lena's bank and an email from her, giving him the password to his online bank account and the suggestion that he change it to one that suited him. The one she had chosen was OLDGIT. "Smartass," he murmured as he smiled to himself.

Lena put on her headset and began the video conference, a monthly financial review and update of activities with her board and CEO. Hal was able to successfully ignore her until he heard her mention a familiar name.

"What about Intercontinental Cruise Line? What's the launch date for the new ship?" she asked.

"Intercontinental?" Hal spoke up. "That belongs to us."

"Hold on a minute," she said into her headset. "What?" she asked Hal.

"Intercontinental belongs to us," he repeated, "to vampires. Through a shell corporation of course, but it was founded by Mr. Snow himself."

"Snow's dead, Hal, remember? The company belongs to me now. Come here, I'll catch you up." She addressed her board. "I'm putting us on speaker. Hal is joining us."

As he moved a chair to sit next to her, Lena explained, "We've known for a while that vampires had their own financial empire with which they were funding operations, including Snow's plan to take over the world." She paused and chuckled. "I'm sorry, Hal, but it sounds like a plot from _Pinky and the Brain_ when I say it."

"The hideous children's cartoon?" Hal shuddered. "Not even Mr. Snow deserves that."

"Come on, Hal. Can't you just see it? Wyndam asking, 'What are we going to do tonight, Snow?' and Snow rubbing his hands together and muttering 'We're going to take over the world!'" Lena cackled at the image. "Okay, sorry, back to business."

Several of her board members were chuckling too, but one voice came over the speaker with a question. "Is there a vampire with you? What is going on?"

"Oh, right, sorry," Lena said. "I guess not everyone has heard the gossip. I live with a vampire now, and a werewolf and a ghost. Everyone, this is my housemate, Hal Yorke. He is a vampire Old One. Hal, this is my board of directors."

"Hello," Hal said.

There was a variety of uncomfortable waves and noncommittal greetings from the dozen board members, most of whom were in a conference room in London, a few of whom were in conference rooms across the globe. Hal noted that Lena was the only one not in business attire.

"I can't see him," a plaintive voice said.

"Vampire," Hal reminded the voice gently. "Can't be seen online, or in photographs or mirrors."

"How do I know what you look like?" the voice said. "I'm not very good with names, but I remember faces."

"Then you are at a disadvantage, I'm afraid," Hal replied with a touch of humor, "unless Lena wants to forward a recently-taken photo of my lookalike."

"We'll worry about that later." Lena interrupted, "Back to business. I've had specialists digging into possible vampire holdings with the idea that cutting off their financial legs would be another way of slowing down vampire growth across the globe. We've made strategic purchases of assets whenever we could. After Stoker's we watched for ripples in the business world that suggested upheaval or a lack of leadership. With the Old Ones gone, we assumed that the vampire business structure would be shaky."

"I thought you were retired," Hal said.

"Semi-retired," she reminded him. "There's more than one way to go hunting, and remember, the extermination of your species is my ultimate goal. Here's the spreadsheet listing known or suspected vampire holdings and our current percentage of ownership." She quickly opened the spreadsheet in a second window and Hal scanned the list.

"Why are you telling a vampire all of this?" her CEO asked.

"I trust him," Lena answered shortly. Again Hal was glad that his shocked expression was hidden from public view. She turned to Hal. "I'll email you this for later, but for now, can you tell how complete the list is?"

"I really can't say. I've been away for decades," Hal said. "I only know what I personally invested in and what some of the others told me about."

"You have investments in some of these companies?"

"Yes, including the Intercontinental. When I left the vampire community I forfeited my interests in any investments." Hal added, "They weren't exactly in my name."

"Still, if you have rights to the property they should be re-established," Lena said. "Get me a list and whatever you can remember about your investments and we'll get it straightened out."

"No." Hal shook his head as he spoke.

"Excuse me?"

"No. I decline."

"Oh for fuck's sake Hal, why?" Lena didn't like being told 'no.' She wasn't used to it, and it didn't sit well.

"It was blood money, stolen from my victims or gained illegally. I didn't earn it and I don't need to benefit from it now," Hal said calmly.

"Well, shit." Lena couldn't think of a valid argument against Hal's point of view.

A grin spread across Hal's face as he realized the situation, "It seems I have gained the upper hand with you again, my lady."

"One small argument won, Hal. Don't get cocky."

Aware that nobody except Lena could see him, Hal leaned over and whispered in her ear, "My lady, when it comes to you I am always cocky." He drew back with a smoldering look and had the pleasure of watching her struggle to maintain her composure in front of her board of directors. She blushed and growled quietly but menacingly at him. He arched an eyebrow and smirked.

"Back to business," she snapped. "Timeline on the launch. Sorry for the interruption."

"I will put together a list of companies that you may want to investigate, if you like," Hal offered docilely as he moved back to his original place at the table. "It will keep me busy so I will avoid interrupting you further."

"Thank you, Hal, that would be great," Lena said overly-politely.

As soon as the meeting was over Lena closed her laptop and stretched. "Time to dance! I'm going to change into some workout clothes."

"And just exactly what kind of 'workout clothes' will you be donning, my lady?"

"Hey, that was perfectly acceptable dancewear." Lena said, blushing again. "It was just a lot less dancewear than I usually wear."

Hal smiled to himself as she left the room. He had asked her the same question at every opportunity since his three-wank morning, and he would continue asking it as long as it made her blush. She was just too adorable for him not to. From terrifying to adorable in the blink of an eye—Lena certainly kept him on his toes.

Lena changed into leggings with a dance skirt over them and a sports bra with conservative tank top over it. She took off the tank top and put on a t-shirt instead, just to be on the safe side. She noticed that the t-shirt said "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" so quickly took it off and changed into a plain blue one instead. She looked at herself in the mirror and asked herself why it mattered what she looked like. For that matter, since when did she blush? What the hell was going on?

"Didn't I try to kill that man about 12 hours ago?" she muttered to herself. "Why do I care what he thinks today?" In truth, she wasn't sure when she had begun caring what Hal thought of her and didn't know what to make of the whole situation. She grabbed her leather dance slippers and practically stalked out of her room.

Hal was waiting at the door to the dance studio, book in hand. "I hope you don't intend to blast my eardrums with 'heavy metal' today," he said. "I can't seem to find my earplugs."

"You don't have earplugs, you use sarcasm as a volume control. Why don't you pick the music today? I can dance to anything." She waved him toward the sound system.

He browsed her CD's for a minute, then chose one and held it out to her with a challenging look. _Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 77_. She frowned thoughtfully. This would require her to be more honest in her dance than she was comfortable being in front of an audience. With Hal as her constant companion Lena had been choosing music that didn't require too much of her—melodies good for exercise and simple expression.

She lifted her chin and met Hal's look with a smile. She would accept the challenge and let him see her true dancer's nature. "Give me a minute," she said. She put on her slippers and did a quick stretch while Hal set up the CD. He carried his book and the sound system remote to his comfy leather chair. She stood in the center of the floor and nodded to him when she was ready.

He pushed 'Play' and for the next 43 minutes was lost in a mesmerizing fantasy as an exquisite and challenging piece of classical music was recreated by an angel.

Music flowed through and over and around her; centuries of ballet and millennia of improvisation poured out of her. She floated and spun and glided and leaped; her body laughed and wept and sang without making a sound; her ponytail was ribbon on the breeze; wings whispered on her back and brushed the ceiling as she swept through the air.

There was a pause between movements and Hal froze in fear that the silence would break the spell, but she knew the music and was expecting it. She simply waited, arms aloft, until the Adagio began with a haunting melody and she was caught in it and moving again.

With the third movement a festive march erupted from the speakers. She suddenly became joyous and celebratory and regal and stepped so quickly that he was breathless just watching her. The music ended with a triumphant flourish and so did she. There was a moment of silence in the room before Hal exhaled a breath he didn't realize he had been holding and leaped to his feet with applause that he couldn't contain. She blushed and smiled as she bowed. She was slightly out of breath, where a human would have been collapsed and panting.

"I don't usually dance like that in front of other people, but this piece doesn't allow for anything less," she said as if she were apologizing for something. She didn't look at him, she looked at the floor. "People—people don't see that part of me, Hal. Only my family has ever seen that part of me."

"Don't worry," he said with a smile. "I won't tell anyone that you are an angel in disguise. They wouldn't believe me if I tried."

"Hardly an angel," she said softly, almost to herself.

"I would very much like to dance with you," Hal said. As she quickly looked up at him he added, "Something simple. A waltz?"

"I have Strauss, would that do? I assume you prefer traditional." She had suggested music for the Viennese waltz, which was faster-paced than the dance Hal had envisioned, but he agreed to it anyway.

"Yes, that will do nicely. "Tales from the Vienna Woods" is a favorite of mine."

She turned to the CD rack and he followed her, replacing Brahms in the player with a selection of waltzes by Johann Strauss II.

"I feel underdressed for this," she said as they moved to the center of the room.

"And yet you were fine leading a corporate board meeting in trousers and a t-shirt with a ridiculous slogan," Hal replied as the music began. He led off with his right foot and so did Lena, making for an awkward moment. "The man typically leads," he said.

"Sorry, I'm usually the man," she replied as she followed him on their second attempt. She smiled at his slightly alarmed look. "I mean I usually dance alone, so I automatically take the lead position."

"The waltz is not a solo dance," he said. They didn't talk after that, choosing to focus on the dance instead. Lena discovered once again what a wonderful dancer Hal was as he led her masterfully around the floor. She was able to surrender herself to his lead and relax, taking his cues as if they had been partners for years. He had perfected the traditional Viennese waltz centuries ago and she knew it by heart as well.

The music ended and they bowed formally, although Lena giggled slightly as she did, which ruined the effect. Then her stomach growled and dancing was officially ended.

"I think that's lunch," Hal said with a smile, but as they went to put the CD away his stomach growled also and it was Lena's turn to smile.

"Apparently," she said as she put the CD back in the rack. Hal noted its position for future reference.

"I'd like to wash up and change back into my trousers and ridiculous t-shirt first," she said as they left the studio.

"You are misquoting me. I didn't say the shirt was ridiculous, merely the slogan." They were entering her room now. He looked at the shirt lying on her bed. It was black, which was fine. It was emblazoned in large white letters: ALWAYS BE YOURSELF! UNLESS YOU CAN BE **BATMAN**. THEN ALWAYS BE BATMAN! He sighed.

She got her clothes off the bed and a clean pair of underpants from the bureau: yellow cotton, no lace. He sighed again, shaking his head sadly.

"What?" she asked. "I'm a cotton gal, Hal."

"I have seen lace made from cotton."

"Well, if I find any lacy underpants in your size I'll be sure and get them for you," she quipped as she slipped out the door and into the new bathroom. Because it was just next door Hal didn't have to lurk in the hallway, he could actually sit in the boudoir chair in the corner of her room and wait.

# # #

Lena was quiet at lunch. Finally she said, "I'm doing a piss poor job with the grace thing."

"I didn't realize you were doing it at all," Hal said.

"See, clearly doing a piss poor job." She used his statement as an affirmation.

"Once again, an endless fount of colloquialisms. I meant that I didn't think you would take the idea seriously," he said. "It is ridiculous."

"Why do you think that?"

"How did Raphael define it? You have to put my interests ahead of yours at all times, in all ways, correct?"

"Yes," Lena said with a smile at the thought of her grandfather's visit. "He said that I should choose what is best for you rather than what is best for myself, always."

"That is exactly what I have demanded from the women I have kept," Hal said. "It is a terrible kind of slavery. I can't imagine you living like that."

"I don't think Raphael saw it as a form of slavery Hal. He saw it as a form of giving." Seeing his baffled look, she continued. "You cannot take by force that which I freely give. The choice has to be mine, to put you ahead of myself. That's the difference. It's just hard for me. I'm not particularly generous."

"The fact that I'm still alive is testament to your generosity."

"That's not enough. I nearly killed you last night."

"But you didn't. And you healed my burn—"

"Which I caused."

"-and you include me in decisions about the hotel, and about your company, and you told your board that you trust me, and you are establishing a legal identity for me, and you are paying me to do a job that I would be happy to do for free," he said as ticked off the list on his fingers. "That sounds very generous to me, my lady."

He didn't list the things that were most important to him; that she gave him her time without making it seem like a burden; that she touched him without shuddering in horror at what he was; that her smile was genuine; that she danced in his presence.

"But those things are easy, Hal."

"Maybe you have more grace than you realize. Trust me, none of those things would be easy for me."

"I feel as though grace should include a kind of extravagance that I have yet to achieve."

"Again I feel it necessary to point out that I am, in fact, not yet a pile of dust."

Lena had become introspective again. "I need a minute," she said, and she left the dining table and walked to the far end of the room, where she had dealt with Byron the night before. She closed her eyes and manifested as she had the previous night and waited. She called her swords into being and held them and waited. The room pulsed with light and heat.

Hal sat frozen at the table, his throat constricting convulsively as he recalled her grip on him. He couldn't imagine what would happen if she touched him now—surely she would burn him to a cinder. Was she trying to frighten him?

She returned to her everyday form and rejoined him at the table. "I didn't really feel it," she said.

"Feel what?"

"The rage. Against you. When I manifest I become more elemental, less civilized. That's why it was hard for me to control myself last night; it brought things to the surface that I usually keep locked away."

Hal nodded his understanding. She could easily be talking about his own struggle with the vampire.

She continued, "But today it's just about gone."

"Why?"

"I think because I told you the truth about who I am and why I wanted you dead. About my daughter. I guess confession really is good for the soul." She shrugged. "Who knew?"

"I will never understand you," he said. He had no other response for what was, in his mind, a miracle of generosity on her part.

"You're not meant to," she said with a smile.

"What was her name?" Hal asked quietly. "She never said. She let us believe that she was you."

"She was protecting me, taking my place. Her true name is Byzantia, after her father. I called her Tania." She saw the question on Hal's face. "Yes, that guy. The founder of Byzantium, what is now Istanbul. I'm from Mesopotamia originally."

"And I thought I had some history," he said.

"I thought we weren't discussing age," Lena reminded him. "Come on Fangboy, the glamorous allure of household chores is calling us."


	22. Chapter 22 Playing Around

Alex clearly had something on her mind as she sat down next to Lena on the sectional.

"You can turn yourself into a man, yeah? Not just for few minutes like with the Hal thing?"

"Yes, although I prefer not to," Lena said.

"But you have, right? You've been a man?"

Tom and Hal had been watching a movie, Tom slumped on one end of the sofa and Hal sitting on the other. They exchanged a look; this conversation sounded like it was going to be much more interesting than their movie. Tom turned off the television as the two men's heads swiveled, nearly in unison, toward Lena.

"I have assumed a male identity as a means of moving freely through cultures where females are restricted," Lena said, "but only briefly, and only when absolutely necessary." Lena found herself using formal language and a clipped tone as a means of discouraging further discussion. It didn't work.

"Can you have sex as a man?" Alex asked the question she had been leading to. If anyone knew how a ghost could shag, it would be Lena.

"Nooo," Lena drew out the word as she shook her head decisively. "I have no interest in having sex as a man."

Alex frowned. That wasn't the answer she was looking for.

Hal studied Lena thoughtfully. He had spent enough time with her to know when something wasn't quite right. Something in her attitude and expression…

"You can't do it, can you?"

Hal could tell he was right as soon as he said the words. Lena buried her face in her hands and shook her head adamantly with a shudder. Finally, red-faced, she burst out, "I couldn't get the damned thing to work!"

Alex snorted and giggled as Tom and Hal burst out laughing.

"Okay you guys, it's not that funny! Really! Fuck me if I ever tell you people anything, ever, again."

"I'm sorry," Hal said, "but the notion that there is something you cannot do is so charmingly refreshing—" he broke off at the mortified look on her face.

Alex grabbed Lena's arm and said, "You have to tell us the story!"

"Yes, please do, I beg you," Hal added. Tom was nodding enthusiastically as well.

Lena sat for a moment shaking her head. She had never told anyone the details of her experiment with manhood, but confessing might make her feel better about the whole horrible thing. "Okay I'll tell you but if you laugh, I will beat every one of you to a pulp, I swear!" she said.

Her housemates calmed themselves as Alex joined the guys on the sofa. They all three sat sedately, poised and ready to behave like the innocent cherubs that they were. Lena took a breath and jumped to her feet as the story poured out of her in a rush.

"It was awful! Oh my god, the dangly parts were the worst! I had the most fragile bits of my anatomy just hanging out there all the time, unprotected! It was unnerving!" She shuddered at the memory. "And I kept forgetting that I was supposed to have body hair, and I couldn't make the stubble show up on my face as the day went on, and I itched in all the wrong places."

Hal was grinning and Alex was giggling into her hand to muffle the noise, and Tom had both hands firmly planted over his mouth so as not to laugh out loud again, but he was very red-faced and Lena knew he was just about to blow. She gave up on the notion of getting through the story unscathed. She paused and nodded, beckoning with her hands that they could laugh at will. They did. When they quieted down she continued.

"I couldn't even think about sex, everything was so badly scrambled in my head. When a pretty girl walked by I had absolutely no reaction, but when a hot guy got close to me, boing, there it went. It was uncontrollable, and obvious, and I had no idea when it was going to happen."

She paused for another round of chuckles and chortles.

"Then this girl decided I was just her type and her father presented me with three goats and a chicken and suddenly we were married! I had to have sex with her or she would be humiliated in front of the tribe. And I couldn't get the damned thing to work!" Lena was gesturing toward her own crotch with both hands now as if the 'damned thing' was still attached.

Yet another round of hilarity ensued.

"Oh my god, the poor girl," Alex said. "What did you do?"

"I took off. What else could I do? I went off and slaughtered a mighty beast and carried it back and presented it to her with my apologies and I left. Never looked back." Lena flopped onto the sectional, her story officially over. In this case, confession had not been good for her, but it had clearly been very entertaining for her housemates.

Tom and Hal thought they were getting themselves under control until they looked at each other.

"Boing," Tom mouthed the word and they collapsed into snickers and giggles again.

After that evening, "boing" became the guaranteed laugh-maker at Honolulu Heights.

"Is that the toaster I hear, Tom?"

"Yes, Hal, it is. The toast is ready."

"What was that noise the toaster made, Tom?"

"Well Hal, I believe it was a 'boing.'"

"I hate you all." Lena muttered into her coffee cup as her housemates snickered and snorted around her.

"Alex, what is that hideous noise coming from the stereo?"

"Well Hal, that is "Weird Science," a song by the group Oingo **Boing**o."

"Oingo **Boing**o you say?"

"Yes Hal, Oingo **Boing**o."

"You can all kiss my ass," Lena said as she pulled the cassette tape from the player and snapped it in half.

"I think we should get a new doorbell for the house."

"Really Tom, what do you have in mind?"

"Well, Alex, I saw one that had a lovely chime. Bing Boing, Bing Boing."

"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on." Lena left the room.

Alex walked casually into the living room and pulled a red rubber ball from her jacket pocket. She began casually bouncing it on the floor as a grin spread across her face. Tom and Hal burst into laughter.

"Payback's a bitch. I'm warning you now. Just wait." Lena grabbed the ball and squeezed it until it exploded.

Lena had her head in the refrigerator looking for an orange when she heard the noise behind her. _Boing._ Snicker. _Boing._ Snicker. She turned around. Tom had a doorstop spring and was casually flicking it to make the sound. He was leaning against the kitchen counter across the room from her. Hal was next to him. They were both snickering.

Alex walked into the kitchen and plopped into a chair. "What's that noise, Tom?"

"Well, Alex, it sounds like a mnft—!" Lena had stalked across the room and grabbed Tom by the back of the neck and the waist, yanked him away from the counter and bent him into a backward dip like a woman in a cheap romance movie. She planted a deep kiss right on Tom's lips, drawing him in until his flailing arms drooped in submission, then she dropped him on the floor where he lay, gasping in shock.

She turned to Hal next and used the fact that he was gaping, open-mouthed, to deliver a full-onslaught French kiss. When he responded she simply lured his tongue into her own mouth, caressed it playfully with her lips and tongue, and nipped it gently in a move that weakened his knees and sent his heart rate through the roof. When she pushed away from him, Hal nearly joined Tom on the floor.

Alex was leaning back in her chair, laughing. "I get it! Boing! Oh, Lena, this is too funny!"

Lena wiped her mouth on her sleeve as she strode over to Alex. She straddled Alex's legs, put a hand on each side of her face, stared into her eyes with a grin, and said, "Tangibility, baby." Lena gave the ghost a kiss that she felt clear to her toes.

Having silenced them all, Lena gave them a victor's smirk. "Thank you, thank you very much," she said, throwing her arms out wide. She bowed before pushing open the swinging doors to the dining room with a flourish and exiting the kitchen. "Elvis has left the building," she said triumphantly on the way out.

The housemates were individually stunned and deeply disturbed by their kisses. Alex finally found her voice again. "Shite!" she whispered, "I think I just became bisexual." With that statement the ghost vanished.

Hal carefully made his way out of the kitchen and upstairs to the new bathroom, where he locked the door and made sure he didn't make too much noise and cleaned up after himself. He assumed Tom was somewhere doing the same.

# # #

The next morning when the toast popped up in the toaster there was a moment of absolute silence in the kitchen.

"Boing," Lena murmured with a half-smile.

Tom hastily left the table to get his toast. Hal gave Lena a measuring look. He wasn't quite ready to admit defeat.

"Isn't there an edict against commingling with cursed beings?" he asked Lena, looking significantly at Tom in order to include him in the question.

"There is," she replied coolly. "That wasn't commingling, that was payback."

"How exactly does one tell the difference?" Hal asked as Tom rejoined them at the table.

"Commingling implies mutual enjoyment," she said impassively.

Hal caught her meaning immediately. "I see," he said, and he left the table and stalked out of the kitchen, offended that she been unaffected by what he had considered an exceptionally good kiss on his part.

Lena maintained her expressionless face until he was gone, then she gave a half-smile and turned to Tom.

"I enjoyed kissing you, Tom. It was lovely."

Tom blushed and stuttered into his toast.

"What about me?" Alex asked.

"You too, Alex," Lena said. "Tangibility isn't an issue for me; I've always been able to connect well with ghosts."

"But you didnae like kissin' Hal?" the ghost asked.

"I didn't say that," Lena said.

"Aw, remind me never to gamble against you," Alex said in admiration. "You've got the best poker face I've seen."

# # #

Lena got regular deliveries from London, usually work-related documents and reports sent from her corporate office. Sometimes a personal letter from some far-flung member of her family was included, usually with a photo or two of families or children in school uniforms. She didn't show them off; they were part of her life beyond Honolulu Heights. She read the letters, admired the photos and put them away in her treasure chest, which she kept locked, supernaturally sealed and stored in the bottom of the wardrobe.

Hal had seen her do it because he was always there. She had explained to him that her most precious items, pictures of her children, all of them centuries old and carefully preserved, took up the majority of space in the chest. He didn't pry. Hal understood the need to keep some things private. Alex didn't understand and was frankly curious.

"Whatcha doin'?" she asked as she came into Lena's room one evening.

"Putting this away," Lena answered as she slid her treasure chest, which actually a sturdy leather-covered wood box with hinged lid, into the bottom of her wardrobe.

"What's in there? Your letters and stuff?"

"Yes, letters and photos from family and friends. Also there are pictures of my own children, which are very old and fragile. I keep it locked away to protect them," Lena replied.

"Can I see them?" Alex perched on Lena's bed as she asked.

"Nope," Lena replied. "Fragile means 'do not disturb'."

"What are they, on paper or something? Scrolls? Cave paintings?" Alex was beginning to have fun with the idea of just how old Lena's family pictures might be.

"Cave paintings wouldn't fit in the box, Alex. I'd need photos of them instead," Lena replied in a deadpan voice.

Alex couldn't tell if she was joking or not and looked at her suspiciously.

"My children's pictures are carefully wrapped and stored in order to preserve them and I don't intend to unwrap them and risk damaging them for the sake of your curiosity," Lena continued. "And yes, one of them is on a scroll, and there are several on paper as well. I can show you photos of some of my current descendants, but they wouldn't be anyone you'd know."

"No, I want to see the old ones," Alex said. "Living with you is like living in a history class."

Hal thought Lena might appreciate changing the subject. He spoke from the boudoir chair where he had been reading a status report on former-vampire-owned business acquisitions. Some of his suggestions of companies to investigate had paid off.

"How are things progressing at the hotel, Alex?" he asked. "Are you still Alex the friendly ghost or have you been able to make yourself seen?"

"I still can't be seen for real, but I think I'm getting closer," Alex replied. "One of the crew asked if I was wearing a dress the other day. He saw something when I was helping Tom set up lunch."

"Really? That's great!" Lena said. "What did Tom say?"

"He said that I had on a dress and leather jacket and boots, and that I was good-lookin' and it was a shame the other fella couldn't see me," Alex replied. "Tom's real sweet about stuff like that."

"What explanation does Tom give for the fact that he is the only one who can see you?" Hal asked.

"Oh, he says it's 'cause he's the only one I want to see me, like we've got something special and I can be seen by anyone I want." Alex smiled. "He said, 'reckon you'll see 'er when she wants ya to an not b'fore.' Like it was my choice."

"He believes in you," Lena said quietly. "One day it will be your choice, you'll see."

"Yeah, that's what Tom says. Speakin' of which, I'm supposed to beat him at poker tonight. Hal, do you remember where we put the deck of Peppa Pig cards?"

# # #

Hal had gotten into the habit of using the new bathroom, especially when they were both upstairs, because it was next to Lena's room and close to his own. It was convenient and kept him within her sphere of influence. He found an odd little gadget sitting on a folded towel on the back of the toilet and carried it to Lena's room.

"Is this yours?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you," she said as she took the little gadget and put it away in her bureau.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Sorry, you weren't meant to see it," she replied, her back still to him as she stood in front of her bureau. There was a moment of silence.

"Some secret new technology?" he asked lightly.

"New technology, yes. Not a secret, just something personal."

"What does it do?" he asked, a note of grimness entering his voice. Hal was beginning to suspect what it did, and he didn't like it.

Lena sighed. She assumed her answer would start a shit storm. Why hadn't she put the thing away right after her shower? _A fucking phone call, and then I forgot. _

"It's a clitoral stimulator, Hal."

"A **what**?" He was briefly confused but got angry as he sorted out the meanings of the words she had used to describe the gadget.

She turned around to face him. "It's a sex toy. I use it to pleasure myself."

"Jesus Christ, woman! I'm right here!" He was yelling, mortified and enraged at the notion of her using such a thing when he was clearly willing to provide for her. He dropped all pretence of the civil flirtatious gentleman; his voice was raw with frustration.

She yelled back, civility gone, frustration clear. "I know you're right here! I wouldn't need that thing nearly as much as I do if you weren't always right here!"

He walked toward her, all anger and harsh angles. "Anything that **thing **can do for you, I can do better," he declared, glaring at her, his face barely a foot from her own.

"I know you can!" she said, glaring back at him. "That's not the point."

"Your **fucking** edict!" he spat at her.

"Your **fucking** curse!" she spat back.

Hal wheeled and stormed out of her room, slamming her door as he went. He practically ran to his own room and slammed the door, then strode across the room and grabbed his overstuffed chair, throwing it against the door. Profanity poured out of him as he tore apart his room; he threw his bedding and mattress; he shook his bed frame until it fell to pieces and he threw the pieces into the growing pile in front of his door. He flung books and bookcase, clothes and shoes, stationary bike. Finally he tipped the wardrobe over onto its face and looked around the room, panting and still in a rage. There was nothing left except the sink, which was fastened to the wall.

He peeled off his shirt as he kicked aside enough mess to give himself some clear floor space, then dropped and began doing press-ups. He didn't bother to count, he just kept going until his limbs gave out and he collapsed from exhaustion. He laid there, his mind still running riot. All of his powers of seduction, all of his experience, the thousands of women he had mastered, meant nothing. She chose a toy when she could have him. She knew he could please her, but she chose a toy instead. How much did she hate him, to make that choice? How dangerous to her **was** his curse? Finally Hal reached the question at the core of it all: why did it matter?

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Why did it matter what she did in her private time? Why had he gone mad at the thought of her enjoying herself without him? As amazing as they had been together when he was human, Hal had no expectation that sex with Lena would be extraordinary now. It couldn't be, without the blood. He was a vampire now, and for a vampire sex was just an appetizer before the true feast. So why did it matter that she refused to give him that one thing, when she gave him so much of herself?

Because he wanted all of her, the good and the bad; he wanted every breath of her, and every look, and every touch, and every word to belong to him. Because she owned him; every breath of him, every look, every touch, every word belonged to her. Because he wanted to destroy anyone and anything that touched her in a way that he could not; because she could destroy him whenever she wanted but chose not to, and in that truth lay a tenuous hope.

There was a knock at the door.

"What?" he called out.

"Knuckles to wood, just like a normal person," Alex said as she popped into the room. "Lena said you had a meltdown. Shite! She wasn't kidding."

"What do you want, Alex?" Hal asked as he slowly sat up.

"I don't know. Nothing. You want some help cleaning this up?" She began to sort through the pile, pulling out books and stacking them in a corner as she spoke.

"I don't really care," Hal said. "Why does it matter?"

"You're my friend and you're upset," she replied simply.

"I'm not your friend, Alex. The man who was your friend wouldn't have done this." He waved a hand wearily at the chaos he had created.

"Good Hal wouldn't have done this, that's for sure. But Mr. Creepy wouldn't have either. He'd have run off looking for people to kill." Alex stopped work and looked at Hal for a moment. "I don't know exactly who you are, but I do know that you are my friend." She went back to work.

Hal sat quietly, watching her. Alex had seen him at his worst and still considered him a friend. So had Tom, for that matter. The world wasn't all black and miserable, after all. He had friends. That had to count for something.

Just as he was beginning to get his equilibrium back Hal felt the vampire stirring. He was no longer under Lena's influence.

"Where's Lena?" he asked. "She's not in her room. I can tell."

"She's dancing," Alex replied.

"I need her," Hal said quietly.

"I'll get her." Alex was gone.

She popped into the studio where Lena was tearing the hell out of her frustration with "Painkiller" by Judas Priest. She was dancing, if it could be called that, with knives clutched in her fists. Alex wondered if she was killing Hal in her dance; she was certainly attacking something. Alex had the sense to wait until the song was over before she turned off the sound system. Lena spun to face her immediately.

"Hal needs you," Alex said. "His door is blocked. You'll have to rent-a-ghost in."

Lena took a deep breath and sheathed her knives. "Okay."

"Can I come with you? Hal says your rent-a-ghosting is different from mine," Alex asked.

"Sure," Lena said, calming herself down with another deep breath. "Come here." She put her arms around Alex's waist and took them together to Hal's room. He was just getting to his feet.

"That didn't seem much different to me," Alex said as she went back to sorting and stacking books. She didn't want to be in the middle of whatever had caused Hal's meltdown.

Lena looked around. "Your room is a mess," she said.

"So am I," Hal said.

"I think this whole operation is FUBARed," she replied.

"What?" Hal's expression told her that he was unfamiliar with the term.

"Sorry," Lena said, "military acronym. I thought you might know it. FUBAR. Fucked up beyond all recognition."

A smile flickered across Hal's face and was gone. "I hadn't heard of it, but it sounds like something a soldier would say, and it is an apt description for the current state of things."

"What do you need?" she asked.

"You," he replied simply. "As much as you can give me without putting yourself at risk."

He held out his hand like a traffic cop signaling for a stop. Lena brushed it aside as she stepped in to slide her arms around him and give him a gentle hug. She made sure to give Hal as much contact as she could; she wrapped her bare arms around his back, spread her hands across the surface of his skin, and set her face in the hollow of his neck. He rested his hands on her shoulders, careful not to pull her closer. He accepted what she offered.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It is none of my business."

"I shouldn't have left it there," she said. "I'll be more careful."

They stood quietly for a minute, her presence calming the curse while exciting the man, until he felt a familiar stirring in his pants.

"Shit," he muttered.

"Boing?" she whispered with a hint of laughter.

"Sadly, yes," he replied as they pulled apart from each other. "It is a chronic condition, and one that has no cure.

"I know what you mean," she said with a wry smile. "We are FUBARed, Hal, and there's nothing we can do about it. Let's work on the mess that we can fix, okay?"

She pulled a shirt out of the chaos on the floor and handed it to him. He put it on and they worked together, with Alex's help, to set the wardrobe upright. Fortunately it wasn't badly broken and Alex was able to make it workable with a few simple fixes. She was an old hand at furniture repair; it had been a frequent requirement with her three brothers in the house.

They had Hal's room about three-fourths back in order when Tom came home from the hotel, later than expected. "What happened?" Tom asked from the doorway of Hal's room.

"Hal had a meltdown," Alex replied.

"You alright, mate?" Tom looked at Hal with concern.

"No, thank you for asking. But I'm doing better," Hal replied.

"Mr. Rook come to see me again. That's why I'm late," Tom said. The conversation was weighing heavily on him and he needed his friends' advice. "They caught the werewolf that attacked the Rileys."

Tom took a deep breath and continued, frowning. "Mr. Rook wants me to help decide what happens to him, to the werewolf. I don't wanna do that, decide if another man should live or die or be locked up or aught."

"What do you mean?" Lena asked. "Is this part of Dominic's new agenda for the DoDD?"

"Yeah, that's what he said," Tom replied. He sat on Hal's bed, which was back in one piece but still unmade, the bedding in a pile on the mattress. "He says that 'humans can't appropriately determine what happens to werewolves because they aren't peers.' Mr. Rook wants a jury of werewolves, or a court, or a tribunal. He threw a lot of words around, I ain't sure what he wants, but he wants me in it."

"So he wants werewolves to begin policing themselves, much as vampires have been doing for centuries," Hal said. "Of course, vampire rule of order has nothing to do with protecting humanity. I can see why Rook would try his experiment with werewolves first. Your species is much more amenable to interacting with humans, and much less of a threat in general."

"Yeah, but why does he want me? I'm not a barrister. I don't know the law." Tom rubbed his hands over his closely cropped hair, a sign that he was worried. "McNair didn't follow the law on all counts," he admitted.

"Maybe not, Tom, but you are a highly ethical person and that makes you an excellent choice to help form whatever sort of quasi-legal system Rook has in mind," Hal said. At Tom's slightly confused look, Hal rephrased. "You are a good man with a good heart and you will do your best to make good decisions."

"Do you think it would work?" Alex asked. "Having werewolves make up their own rules? How is that possible?"

"I suspect that within the sphere of Mr. Rook's influence many things are possible," Hal said. "He gave his word to change the focus of the DoDD after the Hatch incident. It seems that he is determined to move forward."

"He's got 'im locked up at the archive for now," Tom said, his thoughts returning to the werewolf. He turned to Lena. "Your friend Bernard helped catch 'im. He wanted to kill him straight off, but Mr. Rook said he needed to make sure he couldn't be rehabilitated first."

"Bernard doesn't have much patience with killers," Lena said. "He may believe that the man is irredeemable. I could go to the archive and see for myself, but that would defeat the purpose of Rook's plan. I suspect that he wants to use this as a test case, to help establish a rule of law specific to the werewolf species."

"What do you mean, 'see for yourself?' Can you judge a man's worth simply by looking at him?" Hal was certain that Lena's answer would be 'no.'

"Yes, actually, with enough focus and concentration I can assess the quality of a person's soul," she said. "How do you think I track down demons? I can sense evil, both free-running and bound to a person, but souls in torment call out the loudest to me. I follow the pain and find the cause. That's why vampires are harder for me to catch. You don't have a soul for me to read. I only know you by the lack of a soul and the color of your curse."

"Terrifying," Hal murmured.

"So, Lena, can you see my soul?" Tom asked.

"I don't see so much as sense its condition, Tom, but I promise you that you have a very healthy soul with very few shadows on it, in spite of the number of vampires you've killed," Lena replied with a smile.

"Aw, good. I was hopin' that wouldn't count against me, like," Tom said, relieved. "I told Mr. Rook he should talk to Allison Larkin about the court thingy. She'd be brilliant at settin' up a legal court and all that."

"She would," Hal agreed. "She would organize the entire operation with remarkable efficiency." He turned to Lena and Alex. "You have yet to meet Ms. Larkin. She is quite…impressive."

"That's the girl Tom's sweet on, right?" Lena asked.

"Yeah, she's at university and studying too much to come and visit, I reckon," Alex answered for Tom. "I think they are Facebook friends."

"Allison's a real good student, top of her class. She works real hard. I'm proud of her." Tom didn't add that he would be happier if Allison studied a little less and visited with her friends a little more. She seldom posted online and that was his only means of keeping up with her.

"The chance to see Allison again would be a reason to join Rook's experiment," Hal pointed out. "It sounds like the sort of thing she couldn't resist."

"And I'm sure that you wouldn't be asked to make any decisions before their proper time, Tom," Lena added. "Dominic isn't a man to be under-prepared. I'm sure he has the resources that he needs to make a good start with his werewolf legal system."

"I just don't like the idea, that's all," Tom said. "I don't want to say what happens to someone else. I can hardly decide what happens to myself!"

"You were willing to blow yourself up to save the world from vampires and you were willing to die to save the world from Hatch," Alex said. "How terrible can this court thingy be?"

"That was me decidin' **I** could die, Alex, not decidin' for some other bloke."

"You were gonna kill Hal when he went bad, and he's your best mate," Alex pointed out. "I reckon this will be easy. You'll have other people thinking on it with you. Anyway, if it was me, I'd want you making the decision more than anyone, Tom."

"Maybe I'll give it a try. Might be good experience. Too bad I can't put it on my CV, it would look right impressive," Tom said, finding the bright side of things as usual. "And maybe Allison will be there too. That'd be alright, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah, Tom, that'd be great," Alex replied, and she thought she might even have meant it. In truth, Alex didn't think much of Tom's absent sweetheart. If she had a chance at a fella like Tom, she'd give it everything she had instead of running off to school and forgetting about him. Maybe this Allison Larkin needed a reminder from a certain friendly ghost that life had no guarantees.

Alex was quieter than usual the rest of the evening, as she began to think seriously about finding Allison Larkin, and what to say to her when she did.

Hal was nearly asleep later that night when he recalled something that Lena had said during their brief but heated argument. Just one sentence, lost at the time because of his own anger, but it rang like a bell in his brain now, and he sat up with a grin. 'I wouldn't need that thing nearly as much as I do if you weren't always right here!' she had said. It was a small confession, but he'd take it, and he'd make sure to stay 'right here' until she decided to trade her little gadget for the real thing.


	23. Chapter 23 Hal's Birthday

One of Lena's deliveries from London contained an envelope that she both wanted and dreaded, although she did her best to hide her reaction. It was the final step in her plan to demonstrate the extravagance toward Hal that she has spoken of; to demonstrate grace as she understood it, by giving him a gift that would require her to prepare for his needs and plan for his interests in a significant way.

The thought, energy, and attention that Lena paid to her plan required her to put Hal's interests ahead of her own frequently in the weeks leading up to the reveal of her gift, a focus that she resented at first. As she became more involved in it, however, she found herself enjoying her scheme and looking forward to its fruition. Lena remembered that her grandfather's suggestion was intended to help them both, and she began to see her attitude toward Hal changing as she planned his gift.

"Did you ever pick a day for your birthday?" she asked out of the blue the evening after the envelope arrived.

They were at the dining table with a pile of old sheets from the hotel; Hal cut the sheets into 1-inch strips and did his best to tolerate the lint and straggling threads that gradually covered his clothes. Lena sewed the ends together and wrapped the strips onto handmade shuttles for a weaving project she had in mind. She had built a simple rectangular frame to use as a loom and would make soft cotton rugs for her room. She believed the current term was 'upcycling' although finding a way to reuse worn items was a very old idea.

"September 8th," he replied.

She frowned. "That's not even the right season of the year. Wait, that was your recruitment day, wasn't it? The day you became a vampire? I mean your human birthday."

Alex was lying on the sofa, her head toward the dining room, flipping through a magazine. Tom was sitting at the other end of the sofa with her feet in his lap, ostensibly watching television but secretly planning to take off one of her boots when she wasn't paying attention. Another step in her tangibility.

"You don't know when your birthday is?" Alex called to Hal.

"Unless you were of noble or royal blood your birthday wasn't particularly noted," he said. "Time wasn't as strictly counted and regimented as it is now. Calendars and clocks and rotas are much more common in today's world."

"I don't know when mine is either," Lena said. "I picked a day at one time when I had family that wanted to celebrate it. I don't bother anymore."

"How old are you, anyway?" Alex asked.

Lena gave her standard response. "Older than dirt."

"No, really," Alex persisted.

"Yes, really. I probably predate some of the dirt around here," Lena said. "I haven't counted the years. It didn't seem important." She turned her attention back to Hal. "I think your birthday should be this Friday."

"Why?" He knew Lena was planning something; she had that too-casual-to-really-be-casual look on her face.

"Because that's when I'm taking you to London to celebrate it," she replied, a smile starting to spread across her face as she spoke.

"Excuse me?"

"Pinchas Zukerman is conducting and playing with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I have tickets. We'll go to the concert and stay the night at Hotel 41; I have a suite there. We'll meet with some people from the hotel design business on Saturday, see if we can get any good ideas to bring back for the boutique hotel section of the Barry Grand. It'll be great."

"Who's Pinchas Zukerman?" Tom asked from the sofa. He had put the television on 'mute' in order to hear what was going on in the room.

"He is the pre-eminent violinist of the age, Tom," Hal answered. "He is a master of the instrument, and a respected conductor as well. I've never seen him perform, but I've heard his work and it is extraordinary." He looked at Lena. "I don't see how you can expect to take me to London, to a concert no less, and not have it end in a bloodbath. It is impossible."

"You are mistaken. I have already arranged for it to be quite possible. You'll see."

"I'm afraid that you overestimate your influence on me. In a crowd of people I will be overwhelmed by heartbeats and the sound of blood pumping through veins. One scraped shin, one paper cut in my vicinity and I'll turn. I won't be able to help myself." Hal was adamant that Lena forget her silly idea immediately.

"I have a private entrance to my suite at 41 and a private box at the Royal Albert Hall," she replied. "You won't be mingling with the masses, Hal, it will be just us. I've got it all worked out."

"And what happens when your well-laid plan goes awry and I sink my fangs into some poor bugger's throat?"

"Then I will Duck tape your mouth shut and heal the poor bugger," she replied calmly. "I'm not kidding, Hal. I have a new roll of Duck tape to bring along, just in case."

"Duck tape won't stop me," he said grimly.

"Clearly you've never worked with a true Duck tape master," she said. "Trust me, if it can fix solar panels on NASA spacecraft it can handle you."

Suddenly Alex squealed, "Tom, stop it! Oh god, that tickles, stop it, stop it!"

Alex was fighting to get her foot away from Tom, who was resolutely tickling it with a big grin on his face. Suddenly she froze, eyes locked on her foot, which was covered only by her tights. _Where was her boot?_ As she thought the question, it appeared back on her foot, ruining Tom's fun. He didn't really mind, though. He had made his point and Hal and Lena applauded his efforts.

"Way to go, Tom!" Lena cheered. "You'll have her tangible yet."

Tom smiled confidently. "Yeah, I just have keep showin' her that she can do it, right Alex?"

"Yeah, Tom. Yeah." Alex was sitting up on the sofa, still staring at her feet. "What did you do, anyway?"

"I just took yer boot off, Alex, and set it on the floor. It disappeared, like. Then it came back just now. Did you make it do that?"

"I—I guess so. I just asked myself where it was and it showed up," Alex said. She shoved her foot in Tom's face. "Do it again!"

"Okay," he said, and he pulled her boot off again. It disappeared from his hand.

"The other one!" she stuck her other foot in his face and he pulled the boot off nonchalantly.

Alex clapped her hands like a child as she wriggled and flexed her toes. "Shite, Tom, I cannae believe you got those boots off me!"

"I reckon you could do it for yourself if you felt like it," Tom said. "I just did like Lena said and decided it would work if I tried it."

"No," Alex shook her head. "I don't think I can do it yet. I don't believe in it enough yet." As she spoke her boots reappeared on her feet.

"That's just crackers," Tom said. "If I can do it, so can you."

"I don't know Tom. I think I believe in you more than I believe in me," Alex said.

"That's okay, Alex, I'll believe in you for the both of us, for now." Tom smiled and Alex caught herself smiling back, lost in his big eyes. She didn't notice that he had quietly removed a boot until –

"Eeeeee! Tom, fuckin' stop or I'll kill you I swear, oh my god that tickles!"

Alex immediately developed enough tangibility to wail on Tom with her boot-clad other foot and both fists until he jumped up and ran off laughing and begging for mercy. She followed him, boot returning to her foot as she took a step, and chased him into the kitchen where she pinned him against the back door and dug into both of his sides with her fingers. She knew a thing or two about tickle wars and Tom wasn't about to be let off easy. Within a few minutes they were both collapsed on the kitchen floor laughing and panting and a truce was called.

Lena looked at Hal as they ran past. "Anything is possible," she said as she quietly continued winding her fabric strip on a shuttle. "He's playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major. And conducting Symphony #5. Not many chances to experience that kind of music."

"I just don't trust myself," Hal said.

"Then trust me," she replied. "Trust me."

# # #

Hal sat back in the passenger seat of Lena's Audi R8, eyes closed, a smile on his face. He was quite frankly thrilled with the relaxed confidence of her driving, as if the car's power and precision were controlled by thought as much as action on her part. Beethoven's _Piano Concerto No. 5_ was rolling out of the speakers of the perfectly balanced audio system, a relaxing complement to his excitement. Hal, because of Lena's proximity, could simply enjoy it without counting beats or ticking off each individual instrument as it appeared in the composition. He was happy, nervous about the trip into the crowded city and worried about disappointing Lena, but most of all happy.

Hal turned his head to thank her once again for his birthday gift, but what he saw shocked him speechless. A woman of radiant beauty, with red-gold hair and rich brown eyes, met his look briefly before turning back to the road. He stared at her golden complexion and graceful lines, at the subtle strength in the curve of muscle contained within her figure. He had never seen a woman who came close to resembling her. He swallowed. "Lena?"

"Yes? Something wrong?" She caught the hesitation in his voice.

" You've…changed."

"Hmm?" she checked herself quickly in the rearview mirror. "Oh, yeah, sorry. This is the real me. You don't mind, do you?" She gave him a quick grin.

"Mind? You're exquisite!" Hal felt himself blush as he heard his voice squeak. How was that possible? He didn't blush, and he very seldom squeaked. "Why would you ever want to look like someone else?"

She laughed. "Thanks for the compliment. Being 'exquisite' can be distracting, though. Average-looking is much better for everyday wear."

"Of course, I can see how that could be true," Hal responded carefully, keeping his voice neutral. _No more squeaking! _He commanded himself to calm down. She was, after all, just a beautiful woman, and he had dealt with hundreds of beautiful women in his time. Of course, none of them glowed with life like Lena, or smelled quite as lovely, or smiled quite as fetchingly. None of them moved through the world with the grace of silk on the breeze, and none of them turned his insides upside down while muting his bloodlust to a faint whisper.

"I'm going to stay in my own form for the duration of the trip, if you don't mind. It'll be a nice treat for me." She arched an eyebrow at him. "I also have to make sure I'm up to your standards of female companionship. I don't want some other bird trying to steal you away from me."

_Was she flirting with him? _Hal briefly reviewed her last comment._ Yes, she was flirting with him!_ He responded as casually as he could, arching his eyebrows right back at her. "No chance of that. You've got the tickets and the car keys." He gave her a smile that he hoped was suave and confident. She smiled back, then reached into her bag and handed him a money clip full of banknotes. He took it without thinking, then hesitated and looked at her quizzically.

"I know you like to lead," she said.

"I can't, this is too much, it isn't right," he stuttered, looking at the tasteful yet solid gold clip and neatly folded notes.

"Shut up birthday boy, it's part of your present. Besides, I hate handling gratuities and such."

"I would be happy to pay for the niceties," he said stiffly.

"Fine, then consider it a performance bonus if you won't take it as a gift."

"If I've earned this much bonus, then I am clearly being undervalued at work," Hal replied dryly as he flicked through the £5, £10, and £50 notes in his hand.

She laughed. "Feel free to bring that up at your next employee evaluation." With that, the discussion was closed.

Hal recognized that Lena, in spite of her offhand manner, was being considerate of his old-fashioned sensibilities. _The man typically leads. _She had taken it to heart and was doing everything she could to make this adventure a success for him. He pocketed his gift quietly, wondering again at the extent of her thoughtfulness toward him.

He had legal identification, an income, and money in the bank because of her, but he had no money in his pockets and had been vaguely uncomfortable about it. Hal felt vulnerable when he traveled without cash on hand; it reminded him of his youth and the constant scramble to survive. Somehow she had known how he would feel and had been prepared.

From that point on they chatted randomly about the hotel renovation, threw out ideas for the 'Barry Grand Grand Re-opening' and pointed out changes that had happened to the passing landscape over the past few centuries. Hal usually felt badly out of touch with current affairs but he knew more about recent British history and development than Lena did. As an American, she had seen little beyond London during her business trips to the UK.

Lena made her way through London traffic and reached the hotel without incident. She nodded to the parking attendant who let her into the private parking area at Hotel 41, assuming he would notify the manager that she was on the premises. As Lena pulled into her reserved parking space a porter appeared to offer his services. He stiffened slightly when he saw Hal.

"Good afternoon," Lena said to the porter. "This is my associate and guest, Hal Yorke."

"You're a vampire," the porter said, looking at Hal.

"I am," Hal agreed. "I am also a very good tipper." He smiled disarmingly at the porter as he spoke.

"In that case, may I get your bags, sir? My name is Hubert and I will be happy to assist you and the lady during your stay." The porter gave Hal a cheeky grin as he got their bags from the car and followed them into the hotel.

They stepped through the private entrance, designed for special guests who requested discretion, and headed toward the manager's office. Lena was slightly put off by the fact that Maryann wasn't there to greet them; surely the parking attendant had notified her of their arrival. As they entered the manager's reception area Hal and Lena were met by two young men wearing suits and name badges, apparently the welcoming committee in lieu of Maryann.

One of their greeters stared at Hal for a moment, then yelled, "Vampire!" and the reception area was quickly awash in hotel staff prepared to attack. Hal wondered if they trained for these events or if the staff was just very, very efficient. Several of them had stakes in hand, so clearly there was a readiness plan somewhere in the training manual and supplies in the closet, probably next to the first aid kit. He made a mental note to tell Tom about it, for use at the Barry Grand.

Hal assumed that Lena would speak to the hotel staff and calm the situation, but he didn't expect what happened next. He was suddenly shielded by two magnificent white wings and nearly blinded by blazing light that reflected off of her intricately engraved silver armor chased with gold as she manifested in a way that he had never seen.

"Touch him and die." Her rich contralto voice sent a tremor through the building; the power radiating from her caused the wall at Hal's back to hum. Their attackers each dropped to one knee in awe and terror, weapons forgotten. Hal pushed gently against one of Lena's wings and felt it yield easily to his touch. He brushed a hand along its luxuriously feathered length as he stepped out from behind her.

He touched her arm calmly.

In a flash she was back to her breathtaking human self. "Sorry. I get protective of my friends." She threw a frustrated look at the fawning people around them. "Get up, you idiots."

The manager's office door was flung open as Maryann entered hurriedly, buttoning her blazer as she rushed to meet them. "Lena! I'm so sorry to be late! Urgent business, demon, had to be stopped." She spoke in clipped abbreviation of what was probably a fascinating story as she pulled Lena into a light hug.

Lena turned to make the introductions. "Maryann, this is my friend…"

"Friend! But he's just a vampire!" One of the fiercer young men spat out a protest, unable to control himself.

Hal was slightly affronted at the notion that he was "just" a vampire. Pity that his position as an Old One wasn't recognized, but of course this wasn't the venue; or so he thought until Lena spoke.

"Just a vampire! Lord Henry Yorke, vampire Old One, scourge of Europe, destroyer of the Seraphin Nepos, is not JUST a vampire. Show some respect."

Maryann the hotel manager hesitated slightly, then extended her hand. "Lord Yorke…"

"Please, call me Hal," he smiled politely as he met her grasp.

"Hal, I'm Maryann. As Lena's guest you are welcome and will have every courtesy extended during your stay." Her voice didn't so much contain a welcome for Hal, as it did a command to all of her employees. He suspected that her commands were generally obeyed.

The angry young man wasn't through yet, however. "How can you call this creature your friend?" he asked Lena, clearly desperate to understand a situation that tore his worldview to bits.

"Remember to whom you are speaking." She took a step toward the young man and read his name badge. "Frederick," she said softly, "do not question me again if you value your life."

In her chilling voice Hal recognized a whisper of his own, when he was on the blood and on his throne as an Old One. _Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. No wonder Lena is so careful of her soul._ He hoped, for her sake, that she was just putting on a show with this bold young man. He was reassured as she turned back to him with a wink.

Frederick, finished with his questions and barely able to hold his water at this point, slid back to the wall opposite and disappeared down a hallway as quickly and quietly as he could. The rest of the crowd dispersed and discreetly returned to their duties.

Hubert the trusty porter appeared with their bags. "Will you be going to your room now?" he asked.

"Yes, Hubert, we will," Lena replied as she moved to her private elevator and unlocked the door, which looked like every other door along the hallway. She and Hal stepped into the elevator with Hubert following.

"That was quite a suit you had on back there," Hal said quietly to Lena as the elevator ascended.

"Full dress uniform," she replied with a chuckle. "Good for parades and impressing children. Not designed for battle. I don't get it out very often."

"You didn't consider them a threat?" Hal asked, signifying the stake-wielding hotel employees.

She shook her head with a slight grimace. "No. Did you?"

He shook his head as well. "No. I don't fear when you are close, my lady."

"You would have been fine without me," she replied. Hal had been unruffled by the attack.

Hubert looked from one to the other of them in amazement. He didn't generally carry luggage for such powerful entities.

The elevator stopped on the 4th floor automatically and opened into Lena's private suite. They stepped into a large open living area, which had matching sofas facing each other, several other comfortable chairs, and a fireplace. There was an armoire tastefully concealing the television and sound system along one wall, with enough empty floor space for dancing. A table suitable for dining or meeting stood near the windows, and a kitchen area, including cabinets, a stovetop, microwave, and refrigerator took up a nearby corner. The suite included two bedrooms, each with its own dressing area and bathroom, and a third bathroom directly off the living area.

The floor was rich hardwood, the rugs were thick and luxurious, the colors throughout were cool blues and greens, with touches of pink and lavender. To Hal it felt more like a garden than a hotel room. There was even a small tiled fountain in one corner.

Lena directed them toward the bedrooms, relieving Hubert of her small overnight bag and pointing him toward the room that Hal would be using so he could take care of Hal's bags. She had brought very little with her, as she kept clothes and toiletries in her suite.

As Hal entered his bedroom he saw an envelope with his name on it on the bedside table. He opened it and pulled out a simple but expensive white linen-finish card with _**Happy Birthday**_ in gold script. Hubert was attending to the business of hanging Hal's suit in the closet along with the clothes that were already there. Hal did a double-take. _Whose clothes are in that closet? Whose room am I in?_ He felt a stab of jealousy, which he tried to shake off as he opened his card. He had no right to question Lena's life choices, especially considering his own history.

Hal smiled as he read Lena's birthday note. 'I have taken the liberty of having some clothes sent in for you. We will return the things that you don't like. Happy birthday, my lord.' So he wasn't borrowing someone else's space for the night.

Hal was so pleased to learn that those weren't another man's clothes hanging in the closet that he absently handed Hubert a £50 note as he left the room. Hal turned out to be an even better tipper than he had intended to be.

He went to the closet and looked through the suits, shirts, and trousers hanging there. A shoe rack held a row of shoes to match the clothes. Everything was top label, custom-tailored, expensive, the kind of clothes Lord Henry Yorke would insist on wearing. They put his off-the-rack suit to shame. He heard a knock at the open door. Lena was leaning against the door frame with a smile on her face.

"Do you know the movie _Pretty Woman_?" she asked. "A wealthy businessman picks up a prostitute and decides to keep her with him while he is in town for a week. He buys her a wardrobe suitable for the society in which he moves."

"Does it have the actress with a great deal of hair and a toothy smile?" Hal asked in turn. "It was a favorite of Pearl's, so yes, I know of it." He walked toward her as he spoke, stopping at the foot of the bed. "You don't need to pay for my favors, my lady. You have only to ask."

"I'm not turning you into a gigolo, Hal, I was just using the movie as a reference to explain the clothes. You are a proud man. You are staying in an exclusive hotel. You are attending a gala concert and sitting in a private box. You will want the wardrobe to match the society in which you are moving." She stepped out of his doorway and into the living area. "Hubert will be back with tea shortly, and a tailor will be here in an hour. You might want to try on a few things and decide what you're wearing tonight."

"It will help me to know what you're wearing," Hal replied as he followed her, stopping at the door of his room, "at least the color of your t-shirt." He teased her because he didn't dare speak honestly about how much her gifts meant to him. Lena was right; he had been concerned that he wouldn't present himself well enough to be her escort for the evening.

She laughed. "Smartass. I'm wearing a dress tonight. Probably green."

Hal moved back into his room, peeling off his shirt as he went. He was most certainly going to try on those clothes, if for no other reason than to see if she had judged his dimensions correctly. He stopped in front of the bureau and, out of curiosity, pulled open a drawer, then another, then another. The bureau was full of new clothes and ties, all of the finest quality, all in his size and all impeccably tasteful.

He stripped right there and put on new boxers and a vest, breathing a happy sigh at the feel of fine fabrics against his skin. It had been far too long; he had missed this part of being wealthy. He returned to the closet and began trying on suits. By the time tea arrived Hal had decided that Lena was paying much closer attention to him that she had let on, because he hadn't found a thing that didn't fit and that he didn't like. He realized that the tailor would have very little to do.

It had been easy for Lena to buy Hal clothes. She had simply become him again. A surreptitious middle-of-the-night visit to Bernard, who had his tailor waiting, 15 minutes to take a good set of measurements, and she was back home and nobody the wiser. After that it was just a matter of choosing what she thought Hal would like and a couple of return visits to the tailor for quick fittings. She had even remembered cufflinks for Hal's dress shirts.

Bernard's tailor came for the fitting and was properly introduced to his client. He was acquainted with supernaturals, although Hal was his first vampire client. Lena had the tailor and his assistant set up in the open space of the main living area where there was plenty of room. She smiled when they asked about a mirror for the fitting, and suggested that they could bring one from her room if they wished.

Lena thought it best to keep contact with the humans to a minimum, especially in the close confines of the dressing area and bedroom, so she served as Hal's personal aide. She assisted him with dressing as he had assisted her on his photo ID morning, taking greater care with the clothes than she typically would. She was quiet, considerate, and helpful, removing any traces of pride from her own demeanor in order to not damage Hal's pride as he accepted her gifts. The opportunity to see him in his underwear was a delightful reward for her efforts.

Hal stood quietly in each outfit as the tailor checked him over and nodded his satisfaction. The trousers had been left unhemmed on purpose, so as to get a precise length, but that required a minimum of contact. Hal kept Lena close to him, often holding her hand to stabilize himself. Sometimes she went to him, using the excuse of straightening a collar or smoothing a line of fabric to maintain proximity. To the humans Hal and Lena looked like an affectionate couple; they didn't realize that the two supernaturals were working together to keep them alive.

The tailor was quick and efficient, and his assistant hemmed and pressed the trousers quickly and expertly. It took them a minute to adjust to Hal's lack of reflection in the mirror, but they quickly stopped asking how he liked the look and concentrated on how the clothes felt and fit.

Hal chose his suit for the evening based on Lena's reaction when she saw him in it. Her eyes lit up and she smiled appreciatively. She approved of everything he wore, but this particular three-piece suit, midnight blue with a subtle grey pinstripe, was clearly her favorite. As he was dressing Hal noticed two small boxes on the bureau: her last gift. She had slipped it into his room somehow during the fitting. The small jewelry box held elegant platinum-and-diamond cuff links and a platinum tie bar. A second box held the understated platinum Rolex watch.

When it came to her own wardrobe Lena didn't care much for fashion fads and trends. She preferred classic styles and colors that suited her, whether they were en vogue or not, and she required comfort above all else. She also knew how to make an impression, and her goal for the evening was to keep Hal focused exclusively on her instead of the thousands of humans in the Royal Albert Hall. Consequently she took more care than usual when dressing.

She chose a dress made of natural, hand-woven silk crepe de chine, cut on the bias, which draped beautifully and moved with her like a second skin. It was simply styled, off the shoulder, cocktail length, with a nice flare in the skirt. It was the green of the emeralds she wore, of the sparks that fired in Hal's hazel eyes. It was her favorite color.

Lena's long hair was soft red with gold highlights that accentuated its natural waves and curls. When left alone it hung to the bottom of her shoulder blades. She parted it on the side and held it back from her face with a Tiffany emerald-and-diamond hair clip, exposing one ear and the graceful line of her neck and shoulder. She wore teardrop earrings that matched the pear-cut emerald centerpiece of her Tiffany emerald-and-diamond necklace. It rested just above her cleavage. Lena had taken the jewels to Louis Comfort Tiffany and commissioned the pieces in 1905, but had never worn them.

She wore a touch of makeup to accentuate her eyes and lips. She softened her skin with a scented lotion of her own creation, one she had developed in her youth. She had the experts at the Santa Maria Novella perfumery make her a new supply, her first in centuries.

She slid her feet into gold pumps and took a few turns around her room, making sure that she was steady on her feet and had just the right touch of sway in her step. She picked up her wrap and her clutch and took a deep breath to calm herself before leaving the privacy of her bedroom. This felt a lot like a date, and she hadn't been on a date, ever. The last time she was interested in a man this particular ritual of courtship hadn't been established yet. Not that she was interested in Hal, she just had to make sure that he was interested in her, for the safety of everyone else in the area. That's what she told herself, anyway.

Hal was waiting in the living room, standing rather than sitting so as not to wrinkle his suit. When Lena walked out of her room he went weak-kneed and staggered, catching himself against the back of a sofa. He was once again speechless and breathless at the sight of her. She held out her arms and turned slowly around.

"Do I meet with your approval, my lord?" she asked with a smile. Hal certainly met with **her** approval. He was a gorgeous man.

He could only nod in reply. He swallowed, breathed, and tried a smile. "Most definitely," he replied.

"Good. The car should be waiting. Shall we?" She held out a gold silk beaded wrap for Hal to place around her shoulders and he did so. He drew her hair out from under the wrap and watched it slip through his fingers like curling flames and spun gold as it settled into place on her back. He breathed in her scent, something delicate and new that was layered over her already alluring personal smell. Hal escorted her to the car like a gentleman, but he was lost in a fog of wonder and it was all rote.

They were driven to the concert hall and given entry in a side door away from the crowds. They were escorted to their private box, where their waiter for the evening delivered their light refreshments. Hal knew he was surrounded by thousands of people but he heard only Lena's heartbeat and his own matching it. He smelled only her intoxicating scent. He saw only her.

It was just the two of them, in a private box big enough to seat a dozen people; it was just the two of them as the lights dimmed and the music swelled and filled the hall with beauty and majesty. It was just the two of them holding hands and murmuring in each other's ears at particularly moving passages or masterful performances by members of the orchestra and by Zukerman himself.

They stayed in their box during intermission, drinking champagne from flutes and eating delicate canapés. Lena saw the curse begin to darken over Hal as he became aware of the milling crowd surrounding them in the hall, so she set down her champagne flute and rose to her feet, drawing him to her. She draped her arms around his neck and began humming in his ear, swaying gently. They danced quietly, feet barely moving in the enclosed space. It was all he needed to return to her.

"I don't suppose you will give me a birthday kiss?" he whispered into her ear.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to stop with just the one?" she questioned in turn. She had a point. He didn't pursue it further. The slip of silk and skin under his hands was more than enough to keep him focused on her.

"Never mind, my lady. You have demonstrated enough extravagance toward me already," he said.

"Apparently not, if you are still asking for more," she murmured with a wry smile.

"I am greedy and selfish. I will always ask for more."

"Just this once, you shall have it," she said as she slid a hand to the side of his face and offered him her lips for a kiss.

He touched them with his own hesitantly, gently, then fully, falling into the kiss and finding no way out. He didn't know how long it lasted. He felt her hands on his chest, softly pushing him away. The lights had dimmed in the concert hall. Intermission was over. He escorted Lena the two steps to her seat, his manners once again rote as he was still lost in the sensations stirred by her touch.

The kiss had been an experiment for Lena, a test of the strength of his curse. She had continued to guard herself against it, even though she knew it was weakening. She decided it was time to find out how much danger it still was to her. She accepted Hal's tentative, tender, deepening kiss and returned it in kind. It was wonderful, rich, hungry, and full of promise, the kiss of an experienced lover and a deeply sensual man. Buried deep within it, like the fishhook in the middle of the fisherman's bait, the curse looked for something to snag on and pull her in. _Let it look_, she thought. Only when the lights dimmed to signal the end of intermission did she pull back. The curse hadn't affected her.

The concert was a great success, one of Zukerman's best performances in years. The orchestra was his perfect partner, and there were well-deserved standing ovations for all solo performers at the end of the night. Lena absorbed the music and glowed in response to its beauty. Hal marveled at the music and at her.

They waited until most of the crowd had left the hall before accepting an escort to their car, again at a side entrance. Hal no longer wondered how Lena arranged for these things, he was just glad that he had agreed to trust her and come to London. He recognized her definition of grace in all that she was doing for him on his newly-declared birthday.


	24. Chapter 24 The Upper Hand

The return to Lena's hotel suite began quietly as they each held moments from the concert in their minds. Hal heard her humming and saw her arms gently swaying to the music. Good thing she had arranged for them to be driven, as she really couldn't resist moving when there was music in her head.

She called ahead and ordered an assortment of delicacies to be brought to their suite from the hotel kitchen, and Hal assumed that she was once again putting his need for seclusion ahead of her own pleasure. Part of him badly wanted to take her out and treat her to the finest London had to offer, but he also realized the risks such a venture would entail.

"Are you sure you don't want to go out for a late dinner?" he asked. "I wouldn't mind walking into a restaurant with you on my arm."

"Thanks, but I think we've had enough public exposure for one night," she replied with a smile. "I don't spend a lot of time at this sort of thing, and I've about had my fill." She looked him over and added, "I suppose you could party all night long."

"At one time, yes, I would have looked forward to it," he acknowledged, "but it wouldn't be the kind of party you'd enjoy."

She chuckled. "I probably would, until you started the torture-murder part of the evening. I've been known to cut loose in my day."

"Would you be referring to your table dance of 150 years ago, my lady?"

"That was not my only table dance," she said lightly. "You should have seen me in Paris. Or Budapest. Or Athens. I could go on." She smiled to herself as she reminisced.

"I'd love to dance with you again," Hal said quietly.

"Then maybe you should," she answered. "There's a sound system in our suite."

Hal suspected that Lena would go straight to her room to change, so as soon as they stepped out of the elevator he caught her hand and pulled her to the sound system, where he recognized a CD and she put it in the player.

"I can't believe you have this one," he murmured as the sound of The Platters singing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" filled the room.

"Find me something better to dance to, and I'll get it," she answered as she allowed herself to be drawn into his arms.

"I don't suppose you know the Astaire-Rogers version?" He smiled as they moved together around the room. "I'm an admirer of his work."

She smiled as she spun lightly out to the length of his arm and back. "So am I, but we'll need the studio for that. Not enough room here."

The song ended and "Only You" began. They continued dancing, easily changing pace and style with the new melody, through "Red Sails in the Sunset" and "Twilight Time."

Finally Lena pulled away from him and turned down the music. "You are by far the best dance partner I've ever had," she said, "but I'm hungry." In truth she would have danced with him for hours, which is why she had to quit.

Lena went to her room to change out of her dress before eating, which left Hal alone to investigate the table and wish she had stayed with him longer. He enjoyed being sharply dressed and was in no rush to change, and besides, he knew she liked the way he looked in his new suit. He saw her eyes linger on him, saw the corner of her mouth twitch upward in the hint of a smile. After a moment's thought Hal removed his suit jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a dining chair. He would give her a new silhouette to enjoy over dinner.

When she came out of her room he felt his stomach cave in; how could she be so impossibly beautiful, even in a simple t-shirt and trousers? He found himself once again at a loss for words in her presence.

Instead of trying to think of something witty to say he simply offered her a glass of wine. Hal had checked the vintage and knew it was a good one. He was once again pleasantly surprised, as he discovered how much better a good wine tasted without the underlying note of disappointment that it wasn't blood.

"You're unusually quiet this evening," Lena said as they ate. "Aren't you enjoying yourself?"

"Yes. More than you can imagine."

She waited. It sounded like Hal might have something more on his mind.

"I've used concerts as hunting grounds or preludes to a feast. I've spent hours listening to music just to focus on counting the number and type of instruments and the time changes and number of beats per minute, to help me control it, control the hunger. In 500 years this is the first time I've just listened to the music. It was more beautiful than I expected."

He poured them each another glass of wine and offered a simple toast. "Thank you, my lady."

"You're welcome," she said with a smile. She took a sip and set down her glass. "This is a far cry from wine fermented in goat skins in the corner of a mud hut."

He smiled at the image of her living in a hut. Every time he thought he had a good picture of Lena she added another tidbit of her past to throw him off. From concert hall to mud hut, he believed that she could master any environment through which she moved.

They finished the bottle of wine before retiring for the night. Hal said it would help him sleep, so it made sense to do so. They both realized that they would be further apart than they had been since Lena's arrival at Honolulu Heights. She asked him not to hesitate to wake her if he needed her during the night, but Hal was determined not to allow the curse to ruin their perfect day. Surely he could survive one night alone without disturbing her. Once he settled into bed, however, he realized that he wasn't as alone as he would have liked. Someone was moving above him.

Hal heard heartbeats and the soft whisper of voices and he felt the vampire stirring deep within him.

"No." He wouldn't accept it. He jumped out of bed and began doing press-ups, focusing on the movement of his body and the rhythm of the count. He just about had it under control when he heard the man above him curse and smelled blood. The man had cut himself shaving.

Hal rushed out of his room and into the living area and pushed open Lena's bedroom door. His senses told him when he touched her door that she was asleep, but before he had taken a step inside her room she was poised in attack position on the far side of her bed, swords in her hands, glow-in-the-dark stars on her t-shirt. He stumbled to a halt. She relaxed when she saw him.

"There are people above me," he said. "Someone is bleeding. I'm sorry." Hal meant that he was sorry for ruining the evening and waking her up and startling her, and for being a vampire and needing blood and forcing her to isolate herself from the world. His 'sorry' carried a very heavy load of meaning and she understood that.

"Don't apologize, Hal. You haven't done anything wrong."

"Still, I'm sorry." He was sorry every second of every minute of every hour of every day and night that he was a creature she couldn't love, and sorry that she spent her life watching his cursed self be less than a man.

"You keep saying 'sorry' and I'm going to slap you upside your head." She moved around the foot of the bed toward him. "So, you can't sleep in the other bedroom. We'll trade."

He let his senses reach out and heard it again, the beating of hearts above him. He shook his head sadly. "This one is no better."

She stood quietly for a moment. "I can sense them. Lots of souls. The fifth floor must be full to capacity tonight. I should have thought of that before bringing you here."

She frowned thoughtfully and looked at her queen-sized bed. "It's a very big bed."

Hal wanted desperately for her to invite him to sleep with her, so instead he shook his head and said, "Not big enough to keep me from finding you while we sleep."

"Well, shit. I don't want to wake up next to a pile of dust in the morning."

"That's not the problem you'd find yourself with, my lady." He glanced at her, then back at the bed. "Unless you don't consider it a problem."

"We can't commingle," she reminded him.

"If I get in that bed with you, there will most certainly be commingling," he said grimly. "Attempted commingling, at least."

They stood silently for a moment, until she said, "You know, those sofas are bigger than some beds I've slept in." She moved to get a pillow and blanket off the bed.

"Very likely much more comfortable as well," Hal added as he took the blanket from her and they began moving toward the living room.

"It's got to beat a pile of animal skins on the floor," she said as she dropped her pillow on the near sofa.

"They are surely better than a hammock in the belly of a ship," he agreed as they went to his room for pillow and blanket.

"I think those sofas are a great choice for the night," she finished.

As they settled in on their individual sofas, Hal once again felt his frustration rising. Damn the vampire curse! He couldn't see it but he knew it was a red curtain blocking him from reaching her. He sighed and thumped the sofa cushion with his fist.

"Hal?"

"Christ, I wish we could just have sex like normal people!" The words burst out before he realized what was happening. His brain was a half-step behind his mouth, an embarrassing aspect of his response to her closeness and to the wine.

Lena laughed. "Come on Hal! You know damn well we never just had sex like normal people." She rolled over, leaving him smiling in spite of himself. Her creativity and stamina had certainly impressed him at the time, and knowing her true nature explained a quite a bit. "Good night, Hal."

It was still dark when Hal became conscious of a weight pressing on his chest. As he began to awaken he recognized the familiar sensation of a body draped over his own. There were soft curves under his hands and silken hair on his face and shoulder. A woman. He smiled. Last night must have gone well.

Suddenly reality slammed into his semi-consciousness and he jerked awake. _Lena! Surely he hadn't…he couldn't have hurt her?" _

He heard her voice, thick with sleep, in the hollow of his neck. "Are you really awake this time?"

"Are you really laying on me?"

She nodded her head. "Nightmares. Had to keep you quiet. Thought you'd wake the neighbors. Too much wine, I think."

"And you thought this was the best way to quiet me?" He was incredulous.

"Nothing else worked. Only way I could get some sleep."

"Oh. Sorry." He had ruined her sleep.

She lazily slapped him upside the head. "I told you to stop saying that. Go back to sleep, Hal. It's too early." She pushed her hair off of their faces. Within moments she was asleep again.

Hal studied their situation. His blanket left off at about waist level and was trailing on the floor. She had lain on his bare chest and covered them both with her blanket. She was sleeping comfortably with a modicum of skin-to-skin contact, which must mean that the curse was becoming less of a threat to her. Something had changed.

He carefully slid his arms more firmly around her. Her only response was to nestle in. He turned his head and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He felt her mouth twitch as she smiled in her sleep. It was enough, for now. He felt his body quietly hum in response to her touch, his heartbeat and breath begin to match her own again, and the soft song of her blood worked as a lullaby as he drifted back to sleep.

Nastusia had the most exquisite hands Henry had ever seen. Once in a while he would be awakened by one of her exquisite hands wrapped around his morning erection, expertly drawing him into a crashing climax while she whispered bawdy encouragement in Polish and English into his ear, her warm breath sending chills through his twisting, arching body. He still dreamed of those mornings and always woke up with the sticky residue in his pants to remind him of just how realistic a dream could be.

Hal was fully engulfed in the dream before the thought occurred to him that Lena was probably witnessing whatever he was doing to cause the inevitable result. He began to fight it and pull himself awake. He heard Nastusia's voice in his ear.

"Don't open your eyes, you'll ruin the dream."

"Too late." He opened his eyes, only to have them squeeze them shut again with his orgasmic convulsion. He heard her chuckle as she took one last nibble and suck of his earlobe. She was gone.

"Dziekuje," he whispered as he sank into half-drunk, post-orgasm sleep. "Thank you."

Hal woke up for good to see daylight making geometric shapes across the room. The curtains had been opened. He was alone.

"Morning." Lena came out of her room fully dressed and aiming for the kitchen. "Breakfast will be here in half an hour if you want to shower first." She began grinding coffee.

Hal went straight to his bathroom, hoping that Lena had returned to her own sofa, or better yet her own room, before his erotic dream had begun. He took a hot shower and pissed while he was in it, because he needed to and because he liked the idea of marking the shower as his territory.

Hal put on the luxurious bathrobe that had been provided as one of the amenities in the suite and went to the closet, drying his hair with a towel while considering his clothes for the day. A surge of energy flowed through the suite and the air quality changed. They had company.

He heard Lena's voice. "Hello Dad." There was no joy, only acknowledgement. This wasn't good.

The male voice, apparently belonging to Lena's dad Michael, archangel and commander of the armies of heaven, also held no joy, but it did hold a great deal of power and an ominous threat. "I've come with a warning. You are too close to the vampire. You must end this thing."

"Why? Because I gave him a hand job? That's not really commingling, Dad."

Her comment hit Hal like a physical blow. _It hadn't been a dream! But why?_ _Grace can't possibly extend to sexual favors. _

Whatever her reason for it, Hal was grateful to Lena for giving him the release he had desperately needed. Now she was in trouble for doing it, and he wasn't about to let her face it alone. He would stand with her, although he wished that he had time to dress first. So much for looking dignified.

Hal had no idea what he would see when he reached the living room, but he was glad that he could face it as a vampire and not a human. Centuries of conflict with creatures who could detect heart rate, respiration, and minute amounts of sweat had prepared him to handle any crisis. He locked down his body with practiced self-control. There would be no sign of fear. Lord Henry Yorke was in the building.

He strode into the living room, nonchalantly drying his hair as he went, and looked toward the sound of voices. He saw a creature resembling a man, nearly seven feet tall, with white-gold hair and fiery eyes. As those eyes zeroed in on him Hal fought to maintain his control. A human would have died of cardiac arrest on the spot.

But Lord Henry Yorke wasn't a human, he was a vampire Old One and Lena was his woman and this was their suite and he didn't give two fucks who decided to drop in uninvited. He met the look with the arrogance and ease of an aristocrat who didn't appreciate unwelcome guests.

"I thought I heard voices. Not breakfast, then." He was cool, relaxed. He tossed the towel on the back of a chair and approached as Lena moved toward him, meeting him halfway.

"Hal, my dad wants to meet you." She smiled at him as she took his hand. She was ready for the game.

"Aren't you a bit mature for your father to approve your dates?" He casually leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Thanks, by the way," he murmured, letting her see the genuine warmth in his eyes.

"You're welcome. My pleasure." She turned to her father, who was barely in control of his righteous indignation. "Hal, this is my dad, Michael, archangel as you know. Dad, this is Lord Hal Yorke, vampire Old One, as you know. My boyfriend."

"Am I now?" Hal teased her, staying in character, acting amused rather than ecstatic at her use of the term. "So last night was officially a date?"

"Of course you're my boyfriend. I don't do that for just anyone." She sent a significant look toward his privates as she spoke.

"Enough!" Michael's anguished roar shook the room. He suddenly held a sword in his hand.

In a moment Lena had squared up on her father, her own two swords at the ready. "Don't do this, Dad. I will bury you."

For the first time in her existence Michael's daughter stood on the opposite side of the battle line from him. "Daughter. What are you doing?"

"A threat against Hal is a threat against me. Your rules. My game."

Michael lowered his sword. "You don't know what you are saying, what you are risking with this game."

"I know the edict against commingling. I've cleaned up the devastation that it causes, destroyed the monsters that it creates. I also know that any edict delivered for the Seraphin Nepos has to be accepted by me individually, because I am unique in the world. And I know that I will defend Hal Yorke with my life."

Hal had never known tension to literally be palpable, but in this case the air was bubbling and fizzing with it. He spoke quietly to Lena. "He's your father. Put away your weapons." She did so without protest, and Michael followed suit but father and daughter continued to glare at each other, neither willing to back down.

Hal was now the only one in the room who was even attempting to be civil. He looked past Lena and her father to the counter. "Coffee ready?" He moved in that direction, passing calmly within a few feet of the furious archangel as he did so.

"It is," Lena said, relaxing a bit and following him. "No tea yet, it's coming with breakfast."

Hal poured himself a cup of coffee. "I'm developing a tolerance for this beverage," he said to Lena with a smile. He turned to Michael, subtly placing himself in front of Lena as he did. "Care to join us?"

The two creatures locked eyes, vampire and angel, both men and yet not, but only one with a semblance of humanity. The angel blinked. "Another time," he said, and disappeared.

After a moment the atmosphere returned to normal. Hal set his cup on the counter. His hand was trembling. "So, that's your father."

"Yep, and is he going to be in trouble when he gets home." Lena shrugged at Hal's questioning look. Who could possibly cause that creature trouble? "Mom hates it when he gets in my business."

"And your mother is-?" Hal asked as he moved to sit at the table before his shaky legs betrayed him.

"Agraja, the first-born, the first Nephilim. Grandpa was a trendsetter," she said with a smile as she joined him, bringing his coffee along with her own, "and something of a ladies' man, until Grandma got ahold of him. So I've heard."

"And your grandfather is Raphael."

"Yes. You met at the house."

"Why didn't you just say so at the time?"

"He said not to let on. You thought you had killed me, remember? And I guess he was worried that it might scare you off if you knew the truth."

"I didn't know I had the option of being scared off," Hal said.

"I don't believe you have it in you to be scared off," she said in quiet appreciation, a smile curling one corner of her mouth.

Hal had no idea how to respond to her compliment. He had never considered himself particularly brave. "Thank you," he replied quietly. "You have an interesting family. Does your father have a point? Have I put you at risk?"

She held her coffee cup in both hands, looking at it rather than him as she gently swirled the liquid inside. She frowned as she considered how best to explain her father's concern. "Big evil is easy to spot, Hal. People can avoid it if they choose. It's the constant and insidious encroachment of evil upon good that we don't always recognize until it is too late. That's what dad is worried about. He's afraid that your curse is damaging me more than I'm helping you."

"He's wrong," Hal said flatly. "He underestimates you."

"I know that. But he doesn't understand humans so he can't see how we change each other. He can only see a result, and he didn't like what he saw this morning."

There was a knock on the door and a cheery voice announced that breakfast had arrived. Hal went to his room to dress, closing his door before Lena allowed the concierge to bring in their meal. He stayed there until the man was gone. Lena's friend Bernard joined them for breakfast, and although Hal wanted more time alone with her, he enjoyed the older man's company. It was good to see Lena relax and enjoy herself with someone who could take the piss and get away with it.

Bernard stayed with them as they met with members of the hotel design and management world, giving Hal extra stability as humans came and went from their suite. The meetings crowded their day and left them with a mass of valuable, intriguing, sometimes ludicrous ideas to digest regarding the future of the Barry Grand.

# # #

Finally they were on the road back to Honolulu Heights, with Lena driving, and Hal had the chance to ask her about the morning. He had several questions and decided to work his way from easiest to hardest.

"You slept on me for a while. Why didn't the contact bother you? Doesn't the curse affect you when we touch?"

"Not really, not anymore," she said. "It is weaker and I've changed. I don't want to kill you now, and I don't hate you like I did. I am giving it less ammunition to use against me."

"Good to know. It is nice to not be hated, my lady," Hal said. He couldn't put into words the extent of his joy at what she had confessed. He moved to his next question instead.

"You told your father that you would bury him. Your words. How is that possible?"

"I might have been channeling Bruce Willis there for a moment with that line," Lena admitted. "Angels are like demons, Hal. They are spiritual beings with no physical body so technically they can't be buried. They can assume a physical persona in order to represent themselves in the physical world, which demons can't do, but they don't actually own a body to be buried in."

"That's not quite what I meant," he replied.

"You mean, can I defeat him? I don't know why not." She shrugged. "When I was young he trained me, taught me everything he knew about weapons and warfare and hand-to-hand combat. I've fought a lot of battles since then, against creatures he's never faced. I've also fought alongside him. I know every move he makes before he makes it. One-on-one I could take him."

She let Hal digest that little tidbit before continuing. "Of course, if all of heaven lines up against me I may be in trouble."

"You are as terrifying as you are beautiful," Hal said. She gave him a sideways look but made no reply.

After a short silence Hal asked his next question. "You said that you have to accept each edict individually because you are unique. Again, your words."

"Jesus, Hal, were you taking notes?" She drove in silence, not offering an explanation of her previous statement.

"You told me that Seraphin are forbidden from commingling with cursed beings."

"They are."

"Are you personally forbidden?"

"As of now, yes."

"Can you please explain what that means?"

Lena couldn't explain what it meant without getting into their personal history and her knowledge of his dossier of atrocities, which could only end badly. She refused to be with him because she didn't trust him for multiple reasons, and she wouldn't allow herself to be hurt by him again.

Instead she said, "Look Hal, my genetic makeup is different from any other Nephilim or Seraphin ever. They've only been angel half-breeds at best, and I'm more than half angel. On top of that, most of the rules were made because somebody did something stupid long after I was in the world. So the rule might apply to future generations of Seraphin but not necessarily to me because things don't affect me like they do the others."

She sighed. "Sometimes I have to figure out which rules apply to me and which don't. I have to distance myself from certain things as long as I believe that they are not in my best interest."

"Me being one of those things," he stated it as fact.

"You being one of those things," she agreed.

"Very well my lady, then tell me why you—" Hal hesitated a moment to find words that wouldn't offend Lena, but he shouldn't have bothered.

"—serviced you like a pro this morning?" She finished his sentence with a grin as she remembered how much she had enjoyed playing with him.

"I have yet to find a professional who could come close to your abilities," he replied with his own grin.

"Shoddy training. I say 'Learn from the best, practice what you learn.'" She chuckled as his look. Clearly he was intrigued. "The Sumerians were people of many talents."

She thought for a moment, trying to find a way to tell him what happened. In the end, she lied.

"I woke up and you were in a dream. You were talking in your sleep. I could tell what was going on."

"Yes," he said when she paused. "I have that particular dream with some regularity." He looked out his side window while speaking, not willing to meet her eyes.

"Well, you said that blood and sex are closely linked with vampires, especially with you, but the curse wasn't changing while you dreamed. It is getting weaker, Hal, I can tell, and I don't see it darken when you look at me like you do sometimes. I think that somehow blood lust and sexual lust are separating, or the blood lust is just diminished enough that the link is very weak now."

"Yes. I can tell that there is a difference." Again, he spoke without looking at her.

"I wanted to know what would happen if I was – directly involved – in things. I wanted to see if the curse would strengthen or reach out for me." With that, Lena stopped talking. She just couldn't put the words together to say any more. In her ears, each phrase sounded more ridiculous than the last.

"So it was an experiment," he said calmly, with ice in his voice. "Did you learn anything of value?" Finally he looked at her, but this time she couldn't meet his gaze.

She slammed her hands on the steering wheel. "I am such a fucking liar! Hal, that bullshit I just said, forget it okay?" She glanced at him before returning her focus to the road. "Just forget it."

Caught off guard by her outburst, he said nothing.

"I was asleep, just like you, so I don't know how it started. I heard you say her name—"a tremor ran through her as she recalled the aching need that had roughened the edges of Hal's voice. "Anyway, you said her name and there she was, with your dick in her hand and her tongue in your ear and I was perfectly happy to keep it that way. I could have stopped, but what the hell, right? I used to love getting you off, and you were asleep and dreaming so you'd never know. Then you started to wake up and I freaked out and ran as soon as it was over."

"You ran?" He didn't believe it.

"Like a shot. Straight to my room and shut the door, then held my breath and hoped you'd go back to sleep and not realize what had happened."

Hal couldn't help laughing at her description. "Which I did. I thought it was a dream until I heard you say something to your father. Speaking of which, have you had many conversations like that with him, because I don't remember meeting him the last time we were together."

"That was actually a first." Lena said. "But then, you weren't a vampire the last time we were together."

"It's ironic that we slept on the sofas so I would keep my hands off of you," Hal teased her gently. "Not that I'm complaining, of course. In fact, I'd like to see if I got the same reaction every time I said that particular name."

Lena responded in her usual good-natured way. "Fuck you."

"And which name would I use to request that menu item?" he asked with laughter in his voice.

"That would be 'Miss When-Hell-Freezes-Over. For blow jobs, please request "Madam Kiss-My-Ass." She smiled, enjoying the conversation. "While I'm in the mood for full disclosure, I have to tell you that you were sexy as hell with the whole badass-in-a-bathrobe routine this morning."

He was taken aback by her compliment but did his best to hide it. "Oh, you liked that, did you? That was Lord Henry Yorke, you know. Are you sure you want him around? I thought you preferred the nice guy in the sharp suit."

"I like them both, actually. They each have their good points. Now, if I could have Lord Henry in the sharp suit I'd be one happy camper," she answered breezily.

"Noted. I'll see what I can do." Hal kept his tone light as well, but inwardly he was shaken by her comments. He had been trying to be the kind of man he thought she wanted him to be, and he had felt awkward and clumsy and worthless. Maybe he needed to stop being sorry and start being himself.

After a few minutes of thought, Hal said, "I'd like to drive for a while."

"Okay," Lena replied. "We can stop for a fill-up while we're at it."

She pulled into the next service station and Hal got out first and took care of the petrol. When she moved to the passenger side of the car he opened her door for her, made sure she was settled, and closed her door before settling himself behind the wheel. There was a subtle shift in his attitude; she was no longer allowing him the command position, he was simply claiming it for himself.

As they neared Honolulu Heights, Lena decided it was time for her to transform back into her familiar self. "Time to revert to everyday Lena," she said.

"No." Hal said. "I'd rather you kept your true form."

"People are used to seeing me as everyday Lena."

"People will adjust. Tom and Alex already know that you are a shape changer. Who else are you concerned about?"

"Hmm. Nobody, I guess," Lena replied.

"Then why go to the effort to be something you are not?" he asked.

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather have me as a blue-eyed blonde, if you are choosing my appearance?" she asked, referring to Nastusia.

"I'm happy to have you any way you choose to be, but I prefer your true self above all else, my lady," Hal said simply.

"Then you shall have it, my lord," she replied with a lilt in her voice and a smile on her face. "We'll try it on for a while, at least."


	25. Chapter 25 Change and Grow

When they got home, they had two extra suitcases to carry into Honolulu Heights because Hal wasn't about to leave all of those new clothes behind, even though Lena offered to have them shipped. He did leave a few things to wear during their next trip to London, in case there was a next trip to London. If there wasn't, he at least had the consolation of knowing that whoever stayed in that room after him would have to wonder whose clothes were already there.

They tried to make it into the house with everything at once, of course, and made plenty of noise along the way, so Tom and Alex had time to jump up off the sofa and meet them at the door. Lena could have sworn she saw Tom's arm around Alex's shoulder, and a flash of Alex's bare arms, as she walked past the window.

"Honey, I'm home!" Lena called out as she opened the outside door to the house and pushed a wheeled suitcase into the foyer. She had a garment bag over her shoulder as well, and Hal was behind her with even more stuff. Tom had opened the interior door just moments before and he froze, staring at her. Alex was just behind him, also staring.

Hal gently pushed Lena forward enough to step into the cramped space behind her. "Please allow me to introduce my girlfriend, Ms. Lena Perennis," he said with false formality. Lena did a quick curtsy, her red-haired ponytail bobbing as she did.

"You've changed," Tom said blankly.

"You're his girlfriend?" Alex went for the meat of the sentence.

"Well, we've only had the one date, but she introduced me to her father as her boyfriend, so I suppose I can introduce her as my girlfriend," Hal answered.

"Tom? Could you take this?" Lena pushed the suitcase toward him and Tom jumped into action, grabbed the suitcase, and unblocked the doorway so they could get the rest of the way into the house. In a moment there were three suitcases, two garment bags, and an overnight bag piled by the stairs.

"You met her father?" Alex once again went for the meat of Hal's comment. "Isn't he an angel or something?"

"This morning, yes," Hal replied coolly. "He dropped in unexpectedly before breakfast. He is an angel, and quite intimidating."

"You know that whole boyfriend-date thing was just to piss him off, right?" Lena reminded him.

"Yes, but as he is an immortal being and can apparently look in on you at any time, I assume that we will need to continue the pretense," Hal said glibly.

"Wow, that didn't sound creepy at all," Alex said. "Your dad spies on you?"

"This is the first time my dad has taken a personal interest in my social life," Lena said. "Apparently Hal made quite an impression on him."

"You've changed," Tom said again, looking at Lena.

"Real me," she said. "No disguise. Hal's idea."

"You're beautiful," Tom said simply. "I like it."

"Thanks, Tom, that's sweet of you," Lena said. "Now let's get the birthday boy's new clothes upstairs, okay?"

"All of these are yours?" Alex asked Hal. She grabbed two suitcases and rent-a-ghosted to Hal's room. Tom picked up Hal's other suitcase and a garment bag. Hal got his other garment bag and Lena's overnight bag, leaving her empty-handed.

"You've done quite enough," Hal said as she started to protest that she could carry her own things.

"I took Alex's jacket off," Tom announced without preface as they went upstairs.

"Well done, Tom," Hal said. "Is your long-term goal to remove all of her clothes, or just her outerwear?"

"Hal!" Tom turned beet red as he protested. "I'm just helpin' her believe in herself is all. I wouldn't be so forward as that."

"I can hear you," Alex said from the doorway of Hal's room. "Where you puttin' all these new clothes, anyway?"

"I shall purchase a new wardrobe and bureau online and have them delivered," Hal said happily. "In the interim, I must find someplace to hang these things properly, and I'm sure some of them will need ironed as well." He looked at Alex speculatively. "Do you iron, Alex?"

"I'm not your housekeeper, Hal. Do your own ironing," she said flatly.

He looked at Lena. She shook her head. "Don't look at me, you've seen my wardrobe."

Tom said, "I could have one of the housekeeping staff from the hotel come over, if you promise not to eat 'em."

"I am surrounded by barbarians," Hal replied as he began unpacking.

# # #

They were having tea, with actual tea, not coffee. Hal called it a cream tea and he demonstrated the proper way to eat the scones, clotted cream, and jam. Fortunately they were tasty enough to keep Lena from arguing about his choice of drink or his insistence on propriety.

Hal looked at the organ against the wall. "I don't suppose we could exchange that monstrosity for a piano?" he asked Lena.

"Do you play the piano?" she asked.

"I am sadly out of practice and am not particularly skilled, but I wouldn't mind having an actual instrument in the house instead of that." He glanced disparagingly at the organ. "Perhaps Alex would sound better if she could play on something that was vaguely in tune."

"Good point. I don't play particularly well either, although I have dabbled with it. I am best with the 8-string lyre," Lena said.

"You play the lyre? Isn't that almost a cliché for someone with your heritage?"

"I learned to play the lyre long before cartoonists began drawing angels in robes and halos playing musical instruments," she replied.

"I prefer the lute," he said. "It is an excellent solo instrument and young ladies are particularly taken by it."

"Hmph. That sounds like the guy who learned to play guitar so he could pick up chicks," Lena said.

"Some truths are eternal," Hal said, deadpan. "Chicks dig guitar players."

Lena nearly spewed her tea laughing at his uncharacteristic comment. "Dude, I would totally dig you playing the lute," she responded in an intentionally vapid voice.

"Sadly, mine is no longer playable. My soundboard has cracked and is beyond repair."

"Well, luckily for us we have the Internet, and we can find almost anything we want, including lutes and lyres and pianos. We can check it out after our tea," she said.

"You are making a mess of that scone. Here, let me have it, I'll do it for you," Hal said as he took over preparing her second scone. Lena pretended to be offended but she secretly congratulated herself on being just clumsy enough to get him to do the job for her. It saved her listening to him critique her efforts any further.

"I don't suppose we could put butter on one of those?" she asked, just to see him puff up, affronted by her suggestion. "Never mind, I'll quietly submit to your attempt to Anglicize me with your formal tea etiquette, but only because I know what tomorrow brings."

"And what, pray tell, does tomorrow bring?"

"A smoker, so you can finally fix me that rack of ribs you owe me," she said with a smirk.

"Dear god, you remember that?"

"You bet your bollocks, Fangboy. I may even require you to wear a cowboy hat while cooking, since you have delayed paying up on your wager for so long."

"The only consolation I can find in that statement is the knowledge that there will be no photographic evidence of my humiliation," Hal said. "Sometimes it is good to be a vampire."

"Sometimes it is good to be a shape changer," Lena said.

"You wouldn't!"

"That, sir, depends on the quality of your cooking."

# # #

While Hal and Lena moved cautiously into a new kind of closeness and sense of equality between them, Tom moved reluctantly into the very serious world of Dominic Rook's human-werewolf coalition.

Tom begrudgingly attended the first meeting of the werewolves who had agreed to help develop a structure of law for their species. He was overwhelmed by their stories and their commitment to protecting humanity from themselves, and he was humbled by the efforts some of them had made to attend. They came from all parts of the U.K. and Ireland to meet with Dominic Rook at the archive, a display of mutual trust that didn't go unnoticed.

Rook had set the meeting for the first Saturday after the full moon because it was a good time for everyone to travel and the wolf would be a less strong influence in the meeting's participants. There were 14 in attendance, including Rook and one of his assistants who would work as a scribe. Allison Larkin was not among them.

Rook laid out the premise and stepped aside, giving the werewolves a chance to speak freely of their own concerns and priorities. He listened carefully and noted the individuals who seemed most sympathetic to his ideas in order to have further conversations with them away from the group.

They started talking hesitantly at first, sharing simple ideas; nobody wanted to open up. Then a middle-aged gentleman stood up and took off the jacket that he wore over his short-sleeved knit shirt. His arms were scarred and mangled. He began to speak.

"I was 23 years old. The thing practically tore my arm off. Some of this—" he held out his arms "—comes from time spent in the dogfights. Seven months. Seven deaths. I know they were not my fault, but my guilt will stay with me until my last breath. I tried to stop myself. I told the humans to attack me before the change, to give themselves a chance. Most of them were too afraid, or too slow."

"They put another werewolf in the cage with me for the last fight. I don't know who he was. He did this, attacked before we changed, chewed on me like an animal. I broke his neck. I have no guilt over his death. There are good and bad in every race and every species."

"I had human friends who came looking for me. They helped me escape. This is my way of paying them back for the risks they took. It is my way of making up for the deaths I've caused. If we can do this, if we can find a system of law for our species, if we can find a way to protect humanity from the worst of us," he paused and took a deep breath. "Well, we can call ourselves men and women then, can't we? Not monsters or beasts."

The ideas poured out then, as one after another stood and spoke, sometimes speaking together to finish each other's thoughts.

"What about accountability? The choice to kill may be taken from us one night a month, but we have time to prepare for that night. Where does culpability begin?"

"How do we find the new werewolves and teach them to be safe? How do we stop other werewolves from infecting humans? How do we decide who deserves rehabilitation and who deserves death?"

"What do we regulate? What do we decide is right and wrong? Do we dictate lives or judge choices after they have been made?"

Tom spoke of Bobby, the gentle man who didn't have the mental capacity to understand what had happened to him, and whose life of isolation only made it harder for him to cope with a human world. Bobby was dangerous because he was untrained in how to protect humans from the wolf, and because he didn't have the ability to make smart decisions in dangerous situations. What about the Bobbys? Should they be punished simply because of an accident of fate?

"It has to be a process, a growing and evolving thing," one woman said. "It has to be flexible enough to consider each case and each exception as it arises. It has to be structured enough to be trusted within the werewolf community. This is a tall order, ladies and gentlemen, a very tall order."

"We are pioneers in a way," said another, "but we don't have to invent the wheel. We just have to adapt legal processes for our own use. What we do with this case will set a precedent. We must be careful and thoughtful. We must be fair, rather than kind or vengeful. We must do what is best for our future."

A history professor stood up. "The first question is, 'Do we have the right to judge another werewolf?' If the answer is 'Yes', and I think it is, then we move to the second question. 'What actions do we have the right to judge?' I say that we judge only those actions taken during the werewolf phase rather than attempting to regulate our entire lives. And I say we judge only those actions that threaten humans."

And so the discussion became for focused, on specific behaviors and results. It opened up again into the vast considerations of punishment and rehabilitation, and focused again on the question of who the decision-makers should be and how they should be chosen.

And what about Mr. Rook and the Department of Domestic Defense? Does his bureau become a police agency for the werewolf system of law? Can one have a secret police force within an unacknowledged legal system buried in a government bureaucracy? That, Rook assured the group, would be the easiest part of their task, as the personnel were already in place and it would simply be a matter of the negotiation of authority between Rook and the werewolves.

This creation of a system of laws for werewolves was a weighty thing, a tiring thing. It was a burden that Tom McNair didn't want and one that he believed he personally would never need. He had come to the meeting hoping to find a way to excuse himself from it, but he saw that he shared the burden with good people who struggled like himself with a weighty thing, and like himself were determined to do what was right. So he stayed, listened, and thought, and spoke his mind.

He was the only one who had been a werewolf since infancy, and his life story and careful training by McNair would serve as a guide for others who didn't understand how to manage the wolf. His honesty and courage and good heart would show others that the wolf didn't have to win, that the man was the master in the end, if he accepted the beast and managed it properly.

Tom was disappointed at first that Allison wasn't involved, but as he thought about it later, and as he talked at length with Hal, Lena, and Alex about the long day, the determined group, and the decisions that were being made, he decided that he was glad. When Allison Larkin was in a room there was little space for anything besides her opinion. Perhaps the werewolf legal system wasn't a good place for her after all, not just yet.

Tom was an honest man; he told his friends how he felt about Allison's absence from the group, but it hurt him to realize that his first love wasn't as perfect as he had believed her to be. Alex saw Tom's discomfort and knew that he felt disloyal to his absent girlfriend. He believed that he should want her involved in this important project. Maybe Tom needed a pep talk and a reminder that adults love each other for who they truly are, lumps and bumps and all.

Alex was in the habit of spending at least part of the night in Tom's room now. He was pleased when she joined him before he fell asleep; sometimes she would park in a chair and sometimes stretch out on top of the bed next to him. Tom had become Alex's safe place during the long dark hours when the world around her slept.

That night she spoke to him quietly about what it meant to grow up and learn that nobody should be put on a pedestal. She used the example of her parents, and how when she was a child she thought they were perfect. They weren't. Her mother had hurt her deeply; her father had struggled and done his best and was her hero, but he wasn't perfect either. Alex loved him even more for it, because his weaknesses made him human and real. She hoped Tom understood what she was trying to say.

# # #

Hal and Lena were saying goodnight; Hal stood at the door to Lena's room, on his way to shower; she sat on her bed, already showered and in her oversized t-shirt.

"Will you allow me to do for you what you did for me in London?" he asked. His curse was no longer a threat to her, she had said so herself. It was her choice to follow the edict against commingling; she had admitted that as well. Hal had decided it was time to push her in the direction of returning to their former intimacy.

Her stomach caved in and a thrill ran through her at the thought of what he was offering. "Buy me clothes? Take me to a show?" she asked lightly. He didn't bother to reply. "No, I won't. I can't," she said.

"Why not?"

"There is a line I cannot cross, Hal. I can't allow you that much intimacy or control of me."

"You don't trust me." He kept his voice neutral and kept himself in control. He had anticipated her objection and prepared for a civil, adult conversation, after which he would join her in bed and make her forget about the damned little gadget that pestered his ego like a mosquito in summer. He took a step into her room.

"No, I don't trust you," she said. "I've read your dossier, remember?" Hal's dossier was based on historical record kept by the Seraphin Nepos, with additional input from other archives that were unaware of the fact. It had been sent to her by Ammon's people and included details of his behavior since he had become a vampire. Lena knew about Hal's weakness for women, so she also knew that intimacy with her would be very risky for him.

"I doubt that everything is in my dossier," he said. "There have been exceptions." He took another step.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said.

"You believe that I will take advantage of you." Again, Hal stated an argument that he expected to hear from her.

"When have you not tried to take advantage of me?" she replied. "It happens every day."

"That is harmless flirtation and you know it. I have developed great self-control during my dry periods. I would be happy to demonstrate." He took one more step and was in front of her bed. She looked up at him.

"There is also the matter of my blood. I know you are still drawn to it, Hal. I can't let my guard down." She sighed and shook her head. "So no, thank you for your offer, but I am not able to accept it."

Hal had believed that he was able to hide his continued attraction to her blood. Apparently she was even more perceptive than he realized. _Shit. _As he sat next to her on the bed he detected the delicate scent of her arousal. It was a good sign, but a sign that he needed to be wary of his own response.

"It is much less of a problem now, and as I said, I have developed great self-control," he said, still hoping to persuade her.

"So have I, which is why I am able to refuse you."

"But you don't want to refuse me."

"What I want isn't the issue, remember? This is all about what I need to do to keep you alive."

Finally Hal began to lose his temper. "Why is it so hard for you to accept a gift from me?"

"Because I don't believe that giving me a gift is your motive. As you said, I don't trust you."

"Fine, you can Duck tape my mouth shut, you can tie one hand behind my back, you can even tie me to the fucking bed again, but for Christ sake, woman, let me do this for you. Please." Hal had never in his life begged a woman to let him not have sex with her, until now. He didn't understand why it had become so important to him, but it had.

"I'm not really into bondage anymore," she replied. In truth Lena wanted him badly, but she believed that the allure of her blood affected him more than he was willing to admit. Her blood, combined with Hal's particular fondness for attacking females, made her hesitate to let him get too close to her.

"I warn you that I am not giving up on this," Hal said. "I will ask you every day until you relent. My siege engines are in place. I will even wage a war of attrition if I must. You will not be allowed to escape. The score must be settled."

He had become intoxicated by her scent and the clarity of her desire for him, and had spoken more boldly and directly than he intended. He stood up to leave. "Goodnight, my lady."

In a moment his hand was on the doorknob so he could pull her door closed behind him as he left.

"Hal?"

He stopped, his back to her. He closed his eyes in anticipation as the word 'Please' formed on his lips.

"You will keep your clothes on. You will not get on my bed." Lena was listing the rules he would have to follow in order for her to accept his offer. "You will do no more than I did for you, and you will touch me in no other place and in no other way. When you are done you will leave, and you will not ask again."

"Agreed." He breathed again, and grinned a lopsided grin as he turned back into her room.

"Lock the door," she said.

"Take off your pants," he replied as he did what she said, and turned out the light as well. He was trembling slightly, and took a steadying breath.

"Done." He heard her movements, and as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness he saw her, wearing her t-shirt, lying stiffly on her back on the bed. Hal knelt beside her bed and watched her face as he rested a hand on her thigh.

She twitched. "Give me your other hand," she said.

"Keeping me honest?" he teased.

"You know it, Fangboy."

They held hands along the side of the bed, a way for her to control herself as much as him. He felt the contact quiet his curse and agreed that it was a good idea. He heard her blood singing through her veins, but her quickening pulse encouraged rather than distracted him from his plan. He would be fine. He would avoid her throat, and as for the other area where her blood would be most enticing—Hal blocked the vision from his mind. His fangs would stay a good distance north of that territory. That wasn't part of his agreed-upon services.

She wound her other hand into the sheets and dug in, determined not to reach out to him in any way. He noticed and grinned to himself again. She would need something to hang onto by the time he was finished.

_(Warning, dear readers: Sexually explicit material ahead. I have no subtlety when it comes to this kind of description.)_

Hal leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Are you ready?" and breathed an extra breath into her ear as he did, sending shivers through her body. She nodded and spread her legs to give him access.

"This would be easier if I were asleep," she murmured, referring to his dream in London.

"Would you like me to wait?" Hal asked as his long, sensitive fingers stroked the folds of her labia.

"No-o."

"You've been denuded," he whispered.

"Laser hair removal. I love modern technology," she replied.

"I'm fond of it myself." He slipped his fingers between the folds of flesh and slid smoothly into the slick wetness and heat of her body.

She moaned softly, "Mmmmmm, I've missed this."

He moved to her ear again, sucked on her ear lobe for a moment, and tickled her ear with his tongue so his breath would have even more effect against her moist skin. He whispered, "It has been a long time. Let's see if I remember where everything is, shall we?"

She nodded.

He brushed his fingertips against her clitoris, eliciting a gasp and a jerk. He circled it a few times, applying light pressure, and watched as she began to twitch in response to the pleasure he created.

"I see I found the 'on' button," he breathed into her ear.

Hal pushed deeper into her and moisture bubbled around his finger as he slipped inside her vagina and stroked her sensitive tissue; his thumb returned to her clitoris and circled it in a compatible rhythm. She arched in a spasm of pleasure, her muscles tightened firmly around his finger, and Hal suddenly wanted to possess that tidy space for himself with a fierceness that frightened him.

She heard the sharp intake of his breath through clenched teeth. He had stopped moving.

"Hal?" she whispered. No response. "Hal, please." She meant please keep going, and please don't ruin this for me, and please don't prove me right when I said I couldn't trust you. Her 'please' carried a lot of meaning, and he recognized it. It brought him back to the control that he needed.

"Yes, my lady," he whispered, and he continued the rhythmic movements that she enjoyed so much, proving both his dexterity and his memory of where everything was for her. He stroked and teased her, and whispered encouragement as she allowed herself to sink deeper and deeper into the pleasure he provided.

He brushed his lips against her ear again and suddenly she turned her head and kissed him; the hand that had clutched her sheets now clutched his hair and held him against her when he tried to pull away. Kissing went beyond what she had done for him, but she refused to release him, so he acquiesced. He returned her kisses, slipping the fingers of his free hand into her hair and cupping the back of her head.

As he enjoyed sliding his hand through her luxuriant hair, Hal realized that his hand had been gripped tightly by Lena's only moments before. Suddenly he felt Lena's hand unbutton his trousers and slip into his pants. He jerked away from her.

"No," he said. "That isn't part of the agreement." She wasn't supposed to do anything for him; this was about her.

"Come back," she whispered breathlessly. "Please." Her 'please' meant that she wasn't pleasuring him, she was taking what she wanted from him, satisfying herself, and he understood that.

He returned to her and she hungrily pulled him into a kiss as she wrapped her hand around his erection. Hands and mouths kept time with each other as their breath quickened and she arched and convulsed with the strength of her orgasm. That didn't mean Hal was finished with her, however. He slowed the rhythm of his kisses and his fingers, brought her down gently, and held her on a plateau of pleasure as she continued to shudder and twitch.

She held his cock like it belonged to her, matching Hal's rhythm on her body with her own strokes on him, which meant that when he slowed down, she did too. Hal wasn't ready for her to slow down, in fact he needed the opposite, but he fought down the urgency of his own need and stuck to his plan for her.

When Hal decided she was ready for round two, he shifted position and began to casually swirl his fingers over and around her clitoris while his thumb slipped inside her and pressed on a sensitive area of her vaginal wall to heighten her response. She pulled away from his kiss to whisper in his ear, her voice catching as she felt the increasing intensity, "Will you—come?"

"That is up to you, my lady," he whispered back.

"You should," she said. "What you're doing to me—oh my god!—has to count as more than one—sweet Jesus!"

Hal chuckled in her ear. "I am at your disposal."

"Move your hand," she said, as she pushed him aside and slid her own hand into her genitals to moisten it for him. He knew what she was doing. Friction was not his friend, and as an experienced lover Lena understood that.

She wrapped her wet hand around him and began to move, swirling her thumb across the tip of his penis as he did the same with his fingers on her clitoris. The additional sensation of her slick grasp amplified his pleasure and a thrill ran through his body as he continued pleasuring her. Their pace matched and quickened again, and he carefully remoistened her delicate areas so as not to hurt her. Friction was not her friend either.

Thanks to Hal's expert manipulations Lena's second climax was a powerful eruption that curled her into a ball around his hand and released extra fluid, a female ejaculation. He felt it and knew that he had achieved what he had set out to do, which was to give her multiple orgasms of different types. However, he was beginning to react strongly to her excitement and felt himself shifting into a kind of arousal and hunger that he knew was dangerous. He needed to refocus.

Hal locked his mouth over Lena's and held them tightly together; she kept a hand on the back of his head to keep him with her as she followed the rhythm of his plunging tongue to bring him to climax. When Hal came she continued to stroke him until he was through; she knew that it took several seconds for him to finish.

She was coming down from the high as well, and Hal decided that he had done enough to make sure she never thought a gadget could replace him. His hand rested on her genitals, her hand lightly held his. He laid his head next to hers on the bed as their bodies relaxed and their breathing returned to normal.

She asked, "May we use your shirt for clean-up?"

"Of course," he said.

The bottom of his shirt front was already wet, so she carefully held that part of it away from him as he pulled it over his head and took it off. They helped each other clean up the residue of their pleasure. He gave her back her pants, which she had dropped onto the floor.

Hal stood up, his shirt in one hand. He waited a moment until he was steady on his feet, then tucked himself into his pants and buttoned his trousers.

"Goodnight, my lady."

"Goodnight, Hal. Thank you."

"You're welcome. My pleasure." He closed the door behind him as he left. Hal went immediately to the bathroom, where he showered and removed every trace of her scent from his body. He even washed his shirt while he was there. He knew that he wouldn't be able to rest as long as her tempting presence was with him.

Lena didn't go to sleep right away after Hal left. She took some time to think about what had happened between them and make sure that she was comfortable with the end result. She had kept control of Hal and of the situation; she had enjoyed kissing him and those kisses had gauged his increasing excitement. She had kept his mouth occupied and away from her danger zones and she had made sure that he was satisfied when he left her room.

Hal had done a spectacular job of satisfying her as well; she felt herself flush a bit just thinking about it, a residual effect that lasted well into the next day. Lena decided that overall they were even in the satisfaction department, standing at two orgasms each. Equilibrium had been established and there should be no further concerns about who should get what from whom.

Lena overslept the next morning and wasn't in a particular rush to get to the dance studio that day. She said nothing about what had occurred the previous night, but Hal caught her flushing a light pink from time to time and suspected that she was remembering it fondly. He was okay with that.

Hal made no mention of what happened between them either. He had followed her rules to the letter and protested when she chose to break them. He had proven his self-control, to her and to himself. He had proven that she could trust him. He was willing to wait until she came to him for more, as long as she didn't take too long.

It was nearly a week later before Hal got any kind of response from her. He went to his room for the night and found an envelope on the bed with his name on it. He opened it and read her note:

Dear Hal,

You miserable son of a bitch, you have completely ruined my fun. My little toy is no longer sufficient and I blame you. You did that on purpose, didn't you? Asshole!

Sincerely, Lena.

He laughed out loud and went to bed happy in the knowledge that his plan was working. She may not know it, but his siege engines were still in place and the war was far from over.


	26. Chapter 26 Hellraiser

_(Continuing thanks to Saemay and whimsyfox for editing and encouragement!)_

It was bound to happen sooner or later—the jobsite accident that required her extra touch. Lena wasn't all that surprised when Alex materialized in the kitchen and interrupted their lunch. Hal wasn't either, although he looked alarmed at Alex's exclamation.

"Tom needs you! There's been a bad one at the hotel," she cried to Lena.

"Tom's been hurt?" Hal asked as he rose quickly from his chair.

"No, one of the crew. Tom's with her. They called for the ambulance but Tom says it'll be too late." Alex turned back to Lena, who was now standing near the kitchen table, ready to travel.

"Witnesses?" Lena asked shortly.

"Loads," Alex replied.

"Angel it is," Lena said, and she transformed into her classic angel disguise, complete with flowing white pantsuit (she didn't do robes), white wings, and soft radiance emanating from within.

"Stay with Hal," she told Alex, and she was gone in a flash, focusing on Tom's soul to Bullet Train to his location.

He knelt by an injured bricklayer, applying pressure to slow the bleeding from her badly damaged thigh. Nearly 20 people surrounded them, some of them bleeding slightly, a few with more serious damage.

"Hey Tom," Lena said softly as she appeared next to him. He jumped and nearly lost his grip on the woman's leg at the sight of her. Lena knelt next to him.

"Disguise," she said quietly as she laid a hand over his on the woman's leg. "Witnesses."

"Oh, right." Tom nodded, looking at the crowd that had stepped back in disbelief when Lena appeared. Some of them had dropped to their knees. Several were praying.

"You can move your hand now, I got this," Lena said.

She rested her hand over the woman's leg and the injury closed, the bleeding stopped. She held herself still as the pain of the injury moved to her own leg and dissipated. She took the bricklayer's emotional pain too, and felt in it a shock, a sense that something wrong had happened. Lena found more injuries: organ damage and a bad concussion. She took them in, and clenched her teeth as the pain and fear the woman carried rolled through her and was gone. The bricklayer was unconscious but no longer badly injured. She would wake up soon and wonder what had happened.

Lena stood up and surveyed the scene. Apparently a pallet of bricks had collapsed, partially burying the woman. The bricks looked like they had been blown away from her, probably Alex's doing, and were laying around the construction area. The pallet itself looked suspiciously weak and broken. Sabotage? That would explain the sense she got from the bricklayer that something had gone badly wrong. But why sabotage? Lena was suddenly glad that she had told Alex to stay with Hal. Things were feeling all kinds of wrong about this deal.

"What's with the other injuries?" Lena asked.

"A few got hit by flying bricks when Alex cleaned 'em off 'er."

"The medics can deal with them," Lena said. "Check that pallet, Tom. It doesn't look right."

Tom's quick glance confirmed her suspicions and he nodded his agreement, a grim look on his face. "It ain't right. It was done on purpose," he said. "I'm clearing the site and having everything checked."

"Hal." Lena said. She could see by the look on Tom's face that the same thought was forming in both of their minds. Hal was unprotected. "I have to go."

She was gone, leaving Tom to deal with the mess at the site. He looked around at the wondering crowd and shrugged.

"She's a mate o' mine," he said. If the crew could adjust to Alex the friendly ghost, surely they could handle a visit from an angel.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Tom jumped to it then, giving orders to shut down the job site, all injured personnel to wait for medical assistance, all uninjured personnel to begin an immediate safety sweep of the premises. This was no accident, and they needed to find out what else may have been tampered with.

# # #

Lena had been gone less than a minute when the vans pulled up and parked; they lined the streets in both directions. They were all very professional-looking, complete with the name of a home renovation company plastered on their sides: Harker's Home Restoration. Hal got the joke but he didn't appreciate it any more than he appreciated the appropriately-dressed vampires that piled out of the vans and approached the house. They wore matching brown uniforms complete with the company logo and carried what appeared to be tool pouches and cases. He doubted very much that their tools resembled the ones Lena had purchased for the house.

"Vampires," he said quietly to Alex.

"Let's get you out of here," she said, and reached out to rent-a-ghost him. He stopped her from taking him who-knows-where.

"They can't come in without an invitation, Alex. We'll just go upstairs and stay out of sight."

They quietly went to the attic room , stopping at Tom's room along the way to grab a knapsack of stakes. Bless Tom, he was better prepared for emergencies than most Boy Scouts.

"If they can't come in, why do we need stakes?" Alex asked.

"Hetty is an Old One," Hal replied. "Old Ones don't need to be invited in."

"If she comes in, I say we run."

"I'm not much for running, Alex. Clearly the accident at the hotel was arranged to draw Lena away from the house," Hal said. "She will sort that out and return quickly. Let's give her a minute."

A black Mercedes pulled up outside and a small, black-haired female vampire got out. Hetty. She looked up at the house with a satisfied smile as she strode forcefully toward the front door. Everything was going according to plan. Hal's guardian, whoever she was, had been lured away. According to Hetty's spy on-site, the Seraphin Nepos was currently saving some poor sucker's life, which left Hal alone and defenseless.

There were additional injuries for the Seraphin Nepos to deal with while she was there, an unexpected bonus created when the ghost had sent bricks flying into a crowd. Hetty assumed that the ghost would return to the job site and her best mate the werewolf, but even if she stayed at the house, she wasn't much of a threat. Not with the number of assassins Hetty had working for her.

The front door had been forced open by the time she got there, so all Hetty had to do was step inside and call out, "Come on in, ladies and gentlemen, and start looking for that son-of-a-bitch Yorke." She skipped through the house to the now-broken back door and gave the invitation there as well, then hopped up onto the kitchen counter and waited while her horde scrambled to find Hal Yorke for her. _Ah, it is good to be the boss,_ she thought. _I've waited too damn long for this. _

Hetty looked at the two bodyguards who stayed with her in the kitchen. "Find me some fucking lunch," she snapped, "or give me Yorke's." She pointed to the unfinished lunch on the table and her attendants brought the food to her. She laughed to herself as she took a bite. Yorke sure as hell wouldn't be back to finish it.

The vampires had reached the second floor when Lena appeared next to Hal in the attic. He knew she was coming by the shift in the air.

"There are a shit-ton load of vampires in our house," Lena said without preamble, swords already in her hands.

"Hetty," Hal replied.

"Get out," Lena ordered him.

"Kiss my noble ass," he said, echoing her own eloquence as he set down the stakes and held out a hand for one of her swords.

She looked at him for a moment, torn between her need to protect him and the thrill of allowing him to join her in battle. She looked carefully. She saw Lord Henry Yorke looking back at her. She handed him a sword with a smile and gave the other to Alex.

"I know you're not a killer," Lena said to Alex. "Defend yourself. Block the doors. Find Hetty for us if you can."

Alex nodded and was gone. The vampires were at their door.

Lord Henry turned to see Lena offering him a shield made of the same metal as her weapons, with a gold cross inlay. She wore a cruel smile and her eyes were glowing. She had shifted into battle mode; her hair rose like a mane from her head as flames began to ripple through it.

He took the shield with a laugh. "Oh, that's just rude, my lady." His face settled into its own arrogant smirk as they turned to the door. Lord Henry was ready for the kill.

"Ready, my lord?" Lena asked as two scimitars appeared in her hands.

"Ready," Lord Henry said as the door burst open and vampires flooded into the room, tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be the one to reach their boss' target first.

Lord Henry and Lena had retreated into the room and stepped away from each other in preparation for the attack. They wanted to give their prey a chance to get well into their trap before they began the slaughter. Dust exploded into the air as the first wave of vampires fell under their blades. Those who turned away from the cross on his shield ran directly toward her deadly scimitars.

"I didn't know you invited company for lunch," Lena called to her lord as they hacked their way through the crowd.

"I didn't. They came unannounced," he called back to his lady.

"Unwelcome guests! What shall we do with them, my lord?"

"Kill them all!" Lord Henry Yorke's voice rang through the house with the power of an Old One in command and greedy for destruction.

Lena echoes his words. "Kill them all!" The power of her voice matched his and caused the walls to hum.

Hetty heard their voices, felt Lena's power radiate through the house, and ran. She had only felt that kind of power once before, during the Seraphin war. Hetty beckoned to her bodyguards and they rushed the back door, only to find it blocked by Alex outside, holding it closed. In desperation Hetty fled the kitchen. The front door was closed and pinned in place by a sword not of this world. She was trapped. Her guards threw chairs through a window in the front of the house and helped her escape before the ghost could stop them.

Hetty rode away from Honolulu Heights full of rage and fear, her plan in ruins, her horde on its way to obliteration. She finally understood the nature of Hal's guardian; she was the great Seraphin Nepos, unnamed, unknown, and unheard of since the war. Hetty knew she was defeated. As long as the Seraphin Nepos was with him, Hal Yorke was beyond her grasp.

Upstairs the press of vampires in the hallway continued, forcing more victims toward Lord Henry and Lena until panic set in and the vampires began pushing out of the attic room, screaming and cursing for their fellows to RUUNN! Lena and Lord Henry followed and drove them back to the first floor, quickly checking each room as they went to make sure there were no stragglers.

They worked as a team, old soldiers both of them, experienced killers who knew the dangers of ambush as well as head-on combat. When they got to the studio he barred the door while Lena moved with supernatural speed to throw on her favorite _Motorhead_ song, "I am the Sword*," and crank up the volume.

She looked at her lord. "Four minutes to clear the house before the music ends?"

"As you wish, my lady," he replied as the guitar riff tore through the air.

More terrifying than their well-choreographed movements were his laughter as his blade sliced effortlessly through his victims, and her voice rising above the din as she followed the lyrics of her song. Lord Henry appreciated his lady's musical choice; it added to his enjoyment of the kill. She even changed weapons as she spoke their names, wielding a battle axe and a mace in turn with her scimitars. She was breathtakingly ferocious.

They reached the first floor to find Alex barring the broken window, her only way to keep vampires from escaping.

"Hetty's gone," she called out to them. "I couldnae stop her."

"Next time," Lena growled as she unfurled her wings. She spread them across the front room to corral the last of their prey as she and Lord Henry worked together to kill them. He moved with lethal speed and grace; he laughed at his prey, teased them, encouraged them to attack so he could kill them all. He was fearless and cruel, and magnificent. She moved like a lioness, precise, powerful; she stalked her prey with confidence and an easy smile. She was horrifying and brutal, and glorious.

Alex couldn't tolerate their ruthless joy of the slaughter. She went outside to guard the back door, but it was a wasted effort. None of the vampires even reached the kitchen. When the screaming stopped Alex returned to the living room.

Hal and Lena faced each other as dust settled around them, eyes locked on each other, an energy connecting them that Alex couldn't explain. Lena broke their look and spoke to Alex. "Would you let Tom know that everything is okay? He's probably worried." Alex nodded, glad for the excuse to get away from them, and she left. There was a brief moment of silence in the house, before "Born to Raise Hell," the next track on the CD, started to play.

Their weapons disappeared as Lena's lord approached. The curse was dark over him and she wanted it there. They had returned to their primitive natures, the veneer of civility cleared away by the thrill of murder, and Lena knew that her burning eyes signaled to him just as strongly as his curse spoke to her. Battle was an aphrodisiac and victory an even greater one, but the chance to challenge each other head-on left them both nearly breathless with excitement.

Lord Henry leapt on her in an embrace that was an attack at its core, and she met him gladly. There was no calming influence, no tenderness in her touch, only the barbarity of battle.

They assaulted each other with kisses while getting their clothes out of the way. He shoved her onto the sectional, ripped off her jeans and pants, and sent them flying. She laughed and goaded him.

"I thought you were quick on your feet, my lord. What is taking you so long?"

"You beautiful fiend!" Lord Henry dived onto her and buried himself in her with a force that would have torn another woman apart.

"You gorgeous beast!" She shredded his shirt and dug into his skin.

He laughed at the pain as he pounded into her, determined to own her at last, to master her as he had done in his dreams. She met him stroke for stroke, a violent choreography of lust and domination. She saw the change coming, the manifestation that meant the man was gone and only the vampire remained. She was eager for it.

When his eyes blackened and his fangs unsheathed Lena threw them sideways off the sectional onto the floor, landed astride him without missing a beat, and pinned him, digging her fingers into his chest. Her wings wrapped around her to keep the vampire from reaching her flesh, but it didn't keep him from clawing against their strength. She rode him like winged death commanding her pale horse as he twisted and bucked beneath her.

"God damn you, you fucking vampire! I will defeat you! I will ride you clear to hell!"

"Do it! You fucking bitch! Join me!"

She climaxed fiercely and kept on going, determined to drive the vampire into submission. Only after she felt him shudder with his own climax did she slow down as she began to realize what was happening between them. The vampire stopped fighting her when he came, and after a few seconds he laughed.

"I concede—my lady," he panted. "You win—this battle—at least."

She heard the arrogance and satisfaction in his voice. It brought her back to herself, to what she was doing, and to what she had risked—his death and her destruction. She stopped moving. Then she was gone. A split-second later the music froze in mid-lyric: "born to raise he—"

Lord Henry lay on the floor and caught his breath. His hands were raw and bloody from tearing at her wings. He got to his feet with a smile and a wince and looked himself over; bloody gouges in his chest and ass where she had dug in, bloody stripes along his back where she had torn into him. The woman had wicked fingernails. He liked it.

He laughed and called out to her, "Gone so soon? Where are you my lady? Is the game already over?" He licked his blood from his fingers and pulled up his jeans. He didn't bother to fasten them; Lord Henry was still in the hunt. He casually grabbed her jeans and pants from where they were hanging over the bar as he moved toward the stairs. He might return them to her, in time. He could sense her. She was in their bathroom. With any luck he could trap her there.

He tossed the remnants of his ruined shirt into his room as he strode down the hall. As he reached the bathroom, the door opened and a cold wet cloth was thrown onto his face.

"Here," Lena said, "in case you want to wash your face or your dick."

"I prefer something besides water to 'wash my dick'," he said with a sneer as he yanked the cloth off of his face. "I have plenty of strength left for another fuck," he added as he moved toward her.

"So do I," she replied as she casually wiped the vampire dust off her face with her own washcloth. "but I don't feel like fighting your fangs for the sake of fucking you, so wash up. We're done. Besides," she added with a cool, measuring look, "I got what I wanted."

"Whereas I only got part of what I wanted. Hardly fair," he said as he took another step towards her. She didn't retreat; Lena was once again in control of herself and waited for her presence to bring Hal back to her. She was already fully dressed and planned to stay that way.

"Well, I do have to keep you alive, so you will never get everything you want from me," she reminded him.

She no longer felt the need to challenge the vampire, so her presence was able to calm the curse without inflaming the vampire's bloodlust. They both knew it and she was ready for it to happen. After a tense minute Hal reluctantly tossed Lena's dirty clothes into the laundry basket and moved to the sink to wash the blood and vampire dust from his hands and face. He was coming back.

"We just played a very dangerous game," he said quietly.

"Too dangerous," she agreed.

Lena gently took his hands in hers and healed the wounds he had received during their violent tryst. She moved behind him and cleaned his blood from his back as he washed himself off and closed up his jeans. They didn't speak or look directly at each other, but he watched her in the mirror as she cared for him. Her touch finished calming the curse, and it quickly returned to its normal pale pink shadow.

"There's a shit-ton load of vampire dust in our house, and I need to find my shoes," she said as she left the bathroom.

"Good luck." he smiled self-consciously. They had gone flying, along with her jeans and pants, and were probably in a pile of vampire dust and empty uniforms. "I'll help you look." They stopped in his room for a clean shirt; they went downstairs and found her shoes behind the bar in the living room, one on the floor and one hanging off a whiskey bottle. They were shy with each other, and slightly awkward as they returned to the scene of their explosive reunion.

There was a knock at their damaged front door. Lena answered it to find Dominic Rook outside. He stared at her. Rook wasn't expecting to see a beautiful redhead with rich brown eyes. _Who is this woman? Isn't this house being monitored? _he asked himself as he reached for the cross in his inner jacket pocket.

"Please come in, Dominic," Lena said, but Rook didn't budge. Hal spoke from behind her.

"It's Lena, Rook. She's a shape changer. Do come in."

Rook continued to stare suspiciously at Lena. Finally she smiled and said, "Get out the mirror and see for yourself, Dominic. I'm not a vampire."

She and Hal waited in amused silence as Rook got out his pocket mirror and carefully checked. She waved at her reflection and Hal smiled at his lack of one. They had both assumed an appearance of their former comfortable relationship when Rook had turned up at their door. He put away his mirror as Lena ushered him in. Once inside he surveyed the scene.

"What can we do for you, Dominic?" she asked. Hal remained close to her but Lena didn't worry that his fangs might make another appearance. If anything, Hal was slightly protective of her in Rook's presence. He retained a touch of Lord Henry in his manner, as he had done since their trip to London.

"I came to see what we could do for you," Rook replied. "I am too late to warn you of the attack, which was my original goal. I see that a warning would have been unnecessary. Perhaps we can assist you with cleanup instead? It is one of our specialties."

Lena looked at Hal. This was his call, as he would have to deal with the presence of humans in their home. Hal thought for a moment, then nodded.

"You assistance with cleanup would be appreciated," he said coolly, "as would your information about Hetty and her attack on our home." Hal wasn't acknowledging it yet, but he was upset at his team's failure to find Hetty before she reached Barry and the house.

"Of course, I will be happy to share with you the few bits that we were able to glean from our sources," Rook responded. He made a quick call on his mobile and his crew appeared. MiG's dressed in workmen's clothes casually drove away the Harker's vans while another van pulled up in front of the house. This one was discreetly labeled as belonging to a cleaning service.

Hal directed Rook and Lena to the kitchen, where there was no battle-related damage. He thought it best to isolate himself from the 'cleaning service' personnel.

"I got covered in dead vampires again," Lena said as they went. "Hal, this is never coming out of my hair."

"I have a couple of lungs full myself," Hal said. "I'll be coughing them up for a week."

Lena got a pitcher of filtered water from the refrigerator. Hal got glasses, and offered one to Rook as well. He declined. The two old combatants had long drinks of cool water to help rinse the vampire dust out of their systems, after which Hal made some tea for all three occupants of the kitchen.

Rook kept himself together but inwardly he couldn't help noting the remarkably casual attitude that Lena and Hal had toward what had been a massive strike by Hetty's minions. Only the most dangerous killers could be so relaxed after a slaughter of this magnitude. Rook suspected that they had been a fearsome team. His suspicions were quickly confirmed.

"I enjoyed killing with you," Hal told Lena with a smile as they waited for their tea to brew. "It was good to let off some steam."

"I told you if we killed for the same reason we could do it together," Lena reminded him. "It was fun, wasn't it? Vampires are so easy to kill, once I find them. Lately, thanks to you, they've been coming to me."

"With weapons like yours, I can't imagine that anything would be hard to kill. Thanks for the use of the sword, by the way. And the shield—brilliant touch, my lady."

"I thought you would appreciate it, my lord," Lena said, matching Hal's light tone as she used the title.

Hal turned to Rook. "It was inlaid with a gold cross," he explained. Rook got the significance immediately. As an Old One, Hal would have been unaffected by the cross. The shield had become a second weapon he could use against lesser vampires.

"My weapons don't generally take orders from cursed beings," Lena explained, "but a sword and shield are pretty straightforward, and because they are mine they can't be used against me."

"Which means there was no risk to you in loaning them to me," Hal said. "I was careful to avoid touching the blade."

"I assumed you would be."

"So, Rook," Hal said, turning his attention to their guest, "tell us what brought you here. What did you learn, and when?" His question was casual but carried Hal's distrust of Rook.

"First of all, let me apologize for not notifying you sooner," Rook said smoothly. "I did call, but received no answer. You will find my messages later, I'm sure." He continued. "We don't have our resources in place to monitor supernaturals as we once did. We are still in the process of replacing those of us who fell during the British apocalypse, and of course our focus has changed. There is bound to be instability during transition, and this is the reason that I believe we were unaware of Hetty's arrival in Barry until it was too late."

Rook explained the bits of information that he had received: an undocumented ship at the docks, vans belonging to a curiously-named company being off-loaded, known vampires sighted among the company employees. By the time news had reached him that Hetty had been spotted, Rook had put the pieces together and was trying to warn the residents of Honolulu Heights. He had been too late.

Rook's crew cleaned the house in short order and gathered the empty uniforms to take along as a way to get an accurate count of the number of vampires that had been involved in the attack. A quick estimate had the number at 80-something.

Rook asked Hal and Lena to tell him what had happened and made notes as they did. They left out the violent sex part of the story; Rook might sort that out for himself as he sorted through the evidence and notes his team collected. He thanked them for their cooperation and they thanked him for his assistance in cleaning up the mess.

As he left, Rook turned to them once more. "If we could have warned you, perhaps Hetty would have been dealt with as well today," he said.

"That is my only regret," Lena agreed. "She escaped the house before we could reach her."

"She must have recognized you," Hal told Lena. "I doubt that she will make another attempt, knowing what you are."

After the door had closed behind Rook, Hal continued. "We will keep looking for her, nonetheless. I need to speak to my team," he added coldly.

"Gently, Hal, gently," Lena said. "We don't kill our employees for failing to complete a task."

"Of course. Perhaps sending a notice of the day's activities will be enough to obtain the desired response. I suspect I should wait for a bit, however. I would be prone to use very harsh language at this point, and we don't want anyone dying of a heart attack due to being overly-chastised."

She laughed at Hal's sarcasm but agreed with his point. Lena was also upset that Hetty had reached their home, and wouldn't be able to communicate calmly about it for a while either.

They tacitly agreed not to discuss their sex act, which each considered a loss of control, a personal failure, and a bad mistake. Neither one of them was ready to poke at the gaping wound in their relationship just yet. Instead, they took measurements for a replacement window and boarded up the gaping hole that Hetty's bodyguards had made in the front of the house.

Lena ordered the new window online while Hal took his turn in the shower. She ordered new front and back doors and door frames, steel-core with sturdy deadbolts as well. The installers would be there tomorrow.

By the time Tom and Alex got home from work the house was in order, Hal and Lena were clean and appeared to be back to their usual selves, and supper was ready to set on the table. They shared the day's events over their meal.

Tom had found two more places where 'accidents' had been set up to happen, but was comfortable that work could resume as usual tomorrow.

"I don't like knowing that someone did that to my crew," he said. "I reckon we'll be more watchful from now on."

"I don't like knowing that Hetty had time to plan an attack," Hal said. "She had to be aware that you are a healer," he said to Lena grimly. They knew what his statement meant. Hetty must have been watching them for at least a month, because that's how long ago Lena had helped a neighbor boy after a bicycle wreck. It was the only time she had demonstrated her healing ability outside the house.

They had heard a frightened scream coming down the hilly street in front of the house, and Lena had run to the door with Tom right behind her. A little boy crashed his too-big bicycle into a parked car and went flying into the middle of the street. He landed badly; Lena heard the snap of his leg breaking. His father was running down the hill calling his name, but was still a good distance off.

Lena had leaped from the front step over the hedge and into the street to find the boy with a compound fracture of his right leg and a bad concussion. Healing him took just a few seconds, and by the time Tom had joined her, the boy had only a couple of scrapes and a headache to show for his accident. The father arrived, breathless and terrified, to find his son woozy but not badly hurt.

Lena had recommended that the boy be looked at by a doctor, as he had been knocked unconscious. Tom had carried the broken bike up the hill as the father carried his son. Tom had returned shortly with a freshly-baked chocolate cake, a gift from the boy's family. The whole event had taken just a few minutes, the healing itself just a few seconds. Apparently someone had been watching the house very closely and very carefully.

Lena had already realized the significance of Hetty's attack and had contacted her head of security with a private request: investigate everything that moved near Honolulu Heights and everyone who lived or worked in the area. She needed to find a spy.

Alex didn't have much to say about the battle against the vampires until later that night when she and Tom were alone. Only then did she tell him the story from her perspective, that of a fairly normal, humanesque ghost locked in a house with two of the most terrifyingly offhand killers in the world.

"They weren't defending themselves, Tom, they were hunting. They were killing for sport, and laughing about it. Lena was singing, Tom, singing while she chopped vampires to pieces. And Hal, he wasn't Hal, he was Lord Hal again, with the dead eyes and the cold sneer and the laugh—Tom she knew it, she knew it was him and she loved it. She wanted it to be him, so they could kill together. She called him 'my lord' and she meant it."

"She told me to block the doors so the vampires would be trapped inside. Hetty heard her voice, just her voice, and broke through the window to get away from her. They moved like they had been together all their lives, like they knew what the other was gonna to do. How much killing does it take, Tom, to know what another killer is gonna do in the same spot as you?"

"It was just vampires, Alex, not real people," Tom said. "I know it looked bad, but if I was here I'd have been killing right along with 'em. Maybe not singing or laughing, but killing my share. I've killed loads of vampires, Alex, and Lena said it ain't done me no harm."

Tom tried to reassure her, but he hadn't been there, he hadn't seen it for himself. Alex knew that something had happened to both Hal and Lena when the vampires attacked. She had seen things in them that she would rather not have known, and she had learned that together they were even more terrifying than either Hal or Lena had been alone.

# # #

*"I am the Sword" written by Ian Fraser Kilmister, Richard Burston Michael, Michael Kiriakos Delaoglou, Philip Anthony Campbell.

Released on the album **Bastards** in 1993

_Murder I am, you know it was me  
I was the one, that you didn't see  
I was the cut, down to you bone  
I put you there under that stone_

_I, I am the blade, I am the dream of the brave_  
_I, I am the knife, I bring grief to your life_  
_I, I am the sword, I am the word of the Lord_

_Do what you will, I bring you the edge_  
_I am the one to sever your head_  
_I cut so deep, I can cut straight_  
_All depends on the moves you make_

_I, I am the blade, I am the promise unmade_  
_I, I am the knife, I bring death to your life_  
_I, I am the ax, to stop you dead in your tracks_  
_I, I am the sword, I bring the fear of the Lord_

_Centuries pass, dust in the wind_  
_I shall remain, shining in sin_  
_The metal I am, the iron you feel_  
_The song of the dead, the chorus of steel_

_I, I am the blade, I break the oath that you made_  
_I, I am the mace, I am the blow in the face_  
_I, I am the ax, to cut down heroes like rats_  
_I, I am the sword, I do the work of the Lord_


	27. Chapter 27 Kindness and Regret

It was the end of a very long, very exciting, very confusing day. Hal didn't mind that his quiet lunch with Lena had been interrupted by a call for her to save a life, but he **was** upset by Hetty's attack on their home. He'd been happy to slaughter Hetty's vampires, thrilled to fight alongside Lena, and enamored of the weapons she gave him to use. He'd never seen anything slice through flesh and bone as easily as that sword, and the shield was a stroke of genius on her part.

Then things got out of hand, and he attacked Lena in classic Lord Henry style: demanding sex, demanding blood. She was as fierce and eager as he was—they were in it together—until the vampire took over and tried to tear her apart. She defended herself vigorously, that was certain, and she didn't allow him to reach her blood.

Hal hoped that she had enjoyed the sex, but that wasn't the point. She'd trusted him and he had lost control of himself. He'd stalked her through the house and planned to attack her again. Only her ability to calm herself, to calm the vampire, had kept him from it. She had probably saved his life. Again.

He needed to talk to her, to apologize and to thank her for doing what he couldn't do; control the vampire. He went to her room to say goodnight. Her door was firmly shut, which was their Keep Out signal. Hal went to his own room and waited to hear Lena open her door, as she always did just before she went to bed. He fell asleep waiting.

Lena was hiding from Hal because she was sickened and mortified by what she had done. She had lost control of herself; she had pinned Hal to the floor and raped him. She'd taken advantage of his nature so she could draw out the vampire and challenge it. She'd beaten the vampire by taking what she wanted most from Hal while denying the vampire what it wanted most from her.

She was so focused on the vampire that it didn't occur to her at first what she had done to Hal. When she realized it she got sick to her stomach. She barely made it to the bathroom in time and went directly to her room and stayed there afterward. Hal excused her behavior to Tom and Alex, citing an overabundance of vampire dust in her digestive tract. He had a touch of indigestion himself.

Lena believed that Hal had enjoyed the sex, but that wasn't the point. She hadn't given him a choice. She'd done the thing she most despised: taken another person's body by force and used it for her own pleasure. She'd nearly gotten Hal killed in the process, and she'd felt herself slipping into darkness with him. Maybe her family was right to worry about her.

It was late at night when Lena stepped quietly into Hal's room. He had left his door ajar for the night, as always. She planned to wake him and apologize, but he looked so young, with his untidy hair and peaceful expression, that it broke her heart. She was an ancient monster preying on his weakness, and she hated herself. She left as quietly as she had entered, unaware that Hal had awakened with her first step into his room.

Lena went to the studio to dance away her wretchedness but there was no music in her and no music that could draw it from her. She sat on the floor, drew her knees up to her chest and pulled her t-shirt over her legs. She wrapped her arms around her legs, laid her head on her knees and wept.

Hal found her there. He waited for her to return to her room, and when she didn't he threw on a shirt and went looking for her. He saw that the studio door was closed, which meant she was inside, but he heard no music. He opened the door and saw her huddled and wretched in the middle of the floor. He didn't know what to do; he assumed she was crying because she was upset with him. He sat near her and waited for her to say the terrible things that he deserved to hear.

She spoke without raising her head, so her voice muffled; at first Hal wasn't sure he heard her correctly. She said, "I'm surprised you can stand to be near me after what I did to you."

"What **you** did to **me**?" Hal was at a loss. "What did you do to me?"

She still couldn't raise her head to look at him. "I raped you Hal. I pinned you down and took you by force. It makes me sick to think of it. I'm so sorry."

Hal smiled at the notion that she had done anything he hadn't been pleased for her to do. At first he couldn't take her seriously; it was so ridiculous to him that he nearly laughed out loud. But he recognized her misery and took a minute to find an appropriate response. When he did, he was able to use her own words to comfort her. "You cannot take by force that which I freely give," he said.

She stiffened as she recognized the words. "You did **not** just say that to me." She wiped her eyes on her shirt and glanced at him, then looked away, blushing and miserable.

"Yes, my lady, I did." He wanted to tell her that she had done nothing wrong but wasn't sure how to make her see it. "I don't know what to say about what happened between us today," he began, not looking directly at her.

"I assaulted you," Lena said, not looking back.

"I assaulted you first. I should apologize." He looked at her but she wasn't ready to meet his gaze.

"That was mutual, there was no assault on your part," Lena replied as she traced the lines of the wood flooring with her fingers. "I feel terrible, Hal. I know I hurt you."

"I enjoyed it." He picked a piece of lint from his shirt.

She paused, embarrassed. Her lines turned to swoops and whorls as she traced the grain in the wood. "I've never treated my partner like that. Never. I was out of control. Did I actually say I would ride you clear to hell?"

"You did," Hal affirmed. He winced as he added, "and I encouraged you, and called you a fiend and a bitch. I was also out of control."

"I think you said 'beautiful fiend' so at least it was a compliment."

"You called me a gorgeous beast. I hope that was a compliment."

"It was," she said quietly. "You were a gorgeous beast, Hal. I was a monster."

"I like the monster," he said. She saw the curse flare darkly over him again.

"She's dangerous Hal, and not to be trifled with. No, we must be careful. That won't happen again. It can't," she said, as she slid a hand along the floor toward him. He took it and allowed her touch to calm him.

"I dream of us together, and my nightmares are bloody," Hal confessed. "But I don't want to harm you. Today I tried to harm you. I'm sorry."

"That wasn't us," Lena said. "That was the Nephilim against the vampire. I wanted the vampire, I pushed for it, so I could defeat it, even if just for a minute. I want to break that curse so badly."

"So you weren't interested in me," Hal said lightly, with a bitter undertone.

"Oh, I was interested in you, all right," Lena said. "Post-battle sex is the best, and I hadn't had it in over a millennium!" She looked directly at him then, for the first time. He looked back, saw the truth in her expression and smiled at her.

She looked away, frowning, and continued, "I let it get out of hand. I saw the vampire coming and I wanted to challenge it. I lost sight of you, and took away your choice."

"Trust me, Lord Henry didn't mind," Hal said with a touch of wicked humor in his voice.

Lena nodded. "I enjoy Lord Henry, that's for sure. Maybe we're not good for each other, but damn, I like having him around, especially with a houseful of vampires to handle."

"It seems that we bring out the best in each other during battle and the worst in each other when it is over," Hal said. "You told me once that the two of us could do more damage to the world than Mr. Snow ever dreamed of. How close were we, today?"

"I've been thinking of that too. At first I thought we had gotten too close," she replied, "that my determination to beat the curse in the end may be the only thing that kept me from going over the edge."

She continued, speaking truthfully but carefully. "A part of me could live like that forever, hunting with you, killing with you." She shook her head. "I could easily become the vampire's consort, fly into darkness with you, and never return."

She watched the desire and loathing fight for control of him; he hated the thought of her becoming a monster. He hated it just a hair's breadth more than he wanted it.

She said, "Honestly, I came to my senses and realized what I was doing. I was risking your life, and mine too, in a way. We couldn't be together like that without you reaching my blood. And you, us, this weird family is more valuable to me than all of the excitement in the world. I know where my treasure lies, Hal."

"We will have to be more careful, at least for a bit," Hal said. "I will be tempted to draw you into a fight, to feel the thrill of challenging you again."

"Yes, it is another setback, I'm afraid," Lena agreed. "On the plus side, I won't need my toy for a while. I really did get what I needed from you today." She turned pink again as she smiled at him. His face lit up.

His grin told her how important her compliment was to him, even though all he said was, "I'm pleased to have been of service, my lady."

"I'm no lady."

He was quiet for a moment. "You have been my lady since you first walked through the door. It seems fitting that I use the title."

"You don't say my name very often," she said.

"No, I don't. You said your name was a choice," Hal said. "so I supposed that it wasn't your true name."

"My true name is Inanna. I don't use it any longer. Some interesting myths have been attached to it."

"I shall have to do a Google." He teased her gently.

"I'll give you the cuneiform for it and see how far it takes you," she responded dryly. She finally stretched her legs out from under her t-shirt. Hal got quickly to his feet and held out a hand to assist her up. She accepted it.

"Maybe tomorrow I will be able to dance again," she said sadly.

"It is already tomorrow," he pointed out. "Dance with me. Something fun. A mazur?"

"You remember those?" she laughed. "Dance has come a long way since the village festivals of the 1500's. I don't know if I have music for that."

"Chopin's Mazurkas will do," Hal said. "We'll cobble something together." He shrugged at her surprised look. "I know they were composed 300 years later, but they remind me of you dancing in the village."

Lena found her Chopin compendium and piano music quickly filled the studio. She waited for Hal to lead her onto the dance floor.

"I remember a lot of fast steps and spinning," he said. "We'll see how it goes."

They danced barefoot in their night clothes, moving in a circle around the room and spinning on their own axis as they did. They talked their way through the steps and turns, through clockwise and counter-clockwise spins. Hal took the lead position but it was a joint effort to keep from stepping on each other's feet or tripping each other up. They were smiling immediately and laughing shortly thereafter, and by the time they had made a few turns around the floor the day's destruction was far behind them.

Hal watched Lena dance away the sorrow in her eyes and hoped that she had forgiven herself for her perceived injury to him. He hadn't realized how fragile she could be until he had seen her bereft form in the middle of the floor. It broke his heart to think that she had believed badly of herself for his sake.

# # #

Lena had worried about working in the kitchen, with its quantity of knives and other implements that could lead to nicks and cuts, until one day a package had been delivered to the house that contained several pair of cut-resistant kitchen gloves. She hadn't ordered them; the packing slip showed that the order had been placed by Hal Yorke.

He'd barely glanced at them as she held them out to him. "New technology," he'd said. "I'm surprised you didn't think of it yourself." Hal had seen them in the kitchen at the Barry Grand.

Lena was using a pair of the gloves today to peel apples for a pie. She felt domestic, probably in reaction to her stint as vampire-killer extraordinaire yesterday. Hal was at the kitchen table with his laptop. He had learned not to interfere or offer suggestions as to how she might improve her cooking methods.

"I think I found you," Hal said. Apparently he was doing a Google on her true name. "Some of the images even show your wings." He began quoting from Wikipedia: "_Sumerian goddess of sexual love and warfare_, sounds about right—_most prominent female deity in ancient Mesopotamia…many shrines and temples, _very impressive—_associated with lions…symbol of power, _with your hair the symbolism makes sense—_depicted standing on the backs of two lionesses, _not sure that was wise—_unpredictable…temper tantrums_, I thought you said there were myths. So far what I've read sounds completely in keeping with your character."

"Smartass," Lena replied as she calmly continued her work. She wanted the pie done before the installers came to put in their new window and doors.

He continued. "…_complicated relationship with her lover_, I can vouch for that—_descent into the underworld_, wouldn't surprise me—_speeding carnage, clothed in terrifying radiance, _I've seen that so I know that's no myth—_battle is sometimes referred to as 'the dance of Inanna', _something else that I have witnessed—_conversation with her brother,_ you have a brother?"

"Had. Are you about done with that?" Lena was losing her patience with Wikipedia.

"I'll just browse a little more," Hal replied, and went back to his Google. "There has been poetry written about you."

"Please don't start that, Hal, I really don't need to hear it again,"

"Christ, woman, what have you been up to? 'Plough my vulva, man of my heart'?

"That's a very poor translation."

"This website says that yours is the oldest written story on record. Predates the Bible by 2000 years. The world's first love story. What happened?"

She sighed. "Myths, Hal, myths and legends. People took a piece of me and turned it into something else, something they wanted me to be. That's why I left the name behind."

"So there was no great love story?" Hal knew it was absurd, but he still hoped that Lena didn't have too many love stories in her past.

"There have been a few great love stories," she replied, "but I'm usually discreet enough to keep them from becoming legendary." She took off the gloves and began to add sugar and cinnamon to the apple slices.

Hal moved from the table to the counter and got a slice of apple from the bowl. "Being a legend can be challenging," he said quietly. "It leads to certain expectations." Hal understood the burdens that came with being legendary, as he was quite a legend in the vampire world.

"We need a safe word," Lena said, as usual changing the subject and expecting Hal to keep up.

"A what?" He ate another apple slice while she tried to explain.

"Couples, or families," she added hastily, "have a safe word, a word that one of them can say when something is dangerous or when they are doing something and one is uncomfortable and needs to stop. Or when they are in a group and need to get away for some reason."

"Did **you** understand what you just said?" Hal asked.

"A safe word, a word that we can say to each other that means we need to stop what we are doing or get away from where we are," she explained again.

"Something in the order of 'stop' or 'we need to leave'?"

"I'm serious, Hal. I'm not supposed to hurt you, and I've hurt you twice already."

"Three times," Hal replied. "Don't forget the punch in the mouth. I doubt the magic word exists that can stop you once you get started."

"It's worth a try, anyway. Pick a word you can say the next time I get too aggressive."

"When I think of you the only word that comes to mind is 'more,'" Hal said with a grin.

"That's what you said on your birthday," Lena reminded him as she put the pie filling in the bottom crust and began to lay the top crust on.

"Because it is true. I will always want more." Hal watched her fingers work nimbly to make a decorative seal around the edge of the pie crust. In a minute she had it in the oven.

Lena was about to suggest a more appropriate safe word when there was a knock at the door. She answered it, assuming that it was the door installers. She returned carrying a beautiful arrangement of red, orange, and yellow roses in a crystal vase. She set it carefully on the table and looked at the accompanying envelope. It was addressed:

**_My Lady_**

Hal had returned to the table when she went to the door. He watched her quietly as she entered with what he considered a perfect symbol of her: a bouquet of blooming velvet fire. She looked at him, puzzled, then carefully washed and dried her hands. She returned to the table and gently brushed the rose petals with her fingertips as she leaned over to draw in the rich scent of the roses. Finally she opened the envelope and read his card:

_Thank you for not treating me like a child yesterday. _

_ Thank you for giving me the chance to be your partner. It was an honour._

_ -Hal_

"Oh." Lena said the word so softly that he saw, more than heard it. She put the card back in the envelope. "Thank you," she said, and she walked upstairs with the card in her hand. Hal heard her in her room. She was getting her treasure chest. He smiled. Maybe he'd found a way to make her understand how much it meant for him to be accepted as a partner by her, and how little it mattered to him that they had briefly lost control because of it.

# # #

Alex didn't have much trouble finding Allison Larkin because Allison wasn't hiding. The only challenge was getting away from Tom long enough to reintroduce herself and have a little chat with Allison about the importance of staying in contact with loved ones.

While Tom slept, Alex took some time to study the University of Bristol website and memorize a map of the area. She paid special attention to the most boring and academically-based buildings in the area. Allison would be much more likely to be spotted in a library than in a pub.

Once she had completed step one, Alex moved to step two of her plan, which was to begin short visits to the University offices while Tom slept. Alex needed to find Allison's schedule and residence, which took some doing, but thanks to perseverance and her ability to open locks, Alex found Allison's student file and the information she needed.

Step three was a bit of harmless spying on Allison before revealing herself. Alex wanted to learn more about Tom's erstwhile sweetheart before speaking with her. This was trickier because Alex had to be gone during the work day, but she managed it. Tom was very busy and couldn't keep track of her all the time, even though it seemed that he was trying to. Alex knew when he would be less likely to notice her absence.

Allison Larkin was very focused on getting from one place to the next, very focused on her own agenda, and very determined to make the best use of her time, so Alex had no trouble watching her without being seen in return. Alex noticed that Allison's focus was sometimes aimed at a male student who apparently shared some of her classes. They appeared to be 'study buddies.'

Alex decided to visit Allison at night after she was certain Tom was asleep. She rent-a-ghosted to the grounds outside the University residence where Allison lived. There was still a light on in her room, so she was probably studying late. Alex entered the building and paused outside Allison's room. She didn't want to knock and risk waking anyone, but she didn't want to just appear either, in case it would frighten Allison. She stuck her head through the door, a skill she had learned while escaping from her own grave, to see what Allison was doing.

Allison was snogging her study buddy.

Alex jerked her head back through the door and popped outside, where she paced and fumed at Allison's betrayal of Tom. Eventually Alex calmed down enough to realize that Allison wasn't doing any more than Tom had done with Natasha. There was no agreement between the two young werewolves; there were only hopes and dreams on Tom's part. Alex had no idea whether Allison had the same hopes and dreams, but she thought it might be time to find out.

Alex waited and watched for the study buddy to leave. Eventually he did, looking slightly disheveled but none the worse for wear. Alex rent-a-ghosted directly into Allison's room.

"Hey Allison, how's it going?" she asked casually.

Allison jumped about a mile into the air but managed not to scream. She was slightly disheveled but fully clothed, which Alex took as a good sign. Apparently snogging had been the extent of her involvement with her study buddy.

"Alex? What are you doing here?" Allison knew that Alex was part of the Honolulu Heights family but hadn't seen her since before her death.

"Tom hasn't heard from you lately. I thought I might catch you up on the news from Barry. Interested?" Alex sat down as she spoke, even though Allison hadn't invited her to.

"I—of course I'm interested, but I am so busy here that there just isn't time to talk with my friends as much as I'd like," Allison said.

"Friend, eh? Tom thinks of you as more than just a friend, you know."

Allison nodded and stuttered. "Yes, well, of course, I feel the, the same, but, I, I can't consider any kind of formal relationship until I am finished with my education."

"You feel the same as Tom? Does your study buddy know that?" Alex did her best to keep her voice neutral.

Allison blushed but answered directly. "Tom and I have made no promises to each other. There is no formal understanding of any kind between us," she reminded the ghost.

"True." Alex nodded. "I'm just curious. Do you ever plan to have a formal understanding with Tom?"

"I don't know," Allison said quietly. "The more I see where I am going and the kind of life I will have, the less I can see Tom being part of it. I love him, but I have trouble seeing a future with him."

"Tom McNair is the finest man you will ever know," Alex said just as quietly, "and if you think fitting him into your life is a problem, then you have the wrong priorities and you want the wrong kind of life."

The two women sat silently for a minute.

"Allison, look at me," Alex said. "I'm dead. My plans mean nothing. I have nae future. Don't build your life around your plans, Allison, build it around the people you care for. If Tom is one of those people, let him know it. Make room for him."

"You are advising me to change how I think and who I am," Allison said. "I don't believe that is possible."

"Then you might miss out on the best thing you could ever have. Tom isn't the same boy he was last year, Allison. He risked his life to destroy the vampire threat to the world. He did it again to end the British apocalypse. He's faced bigger monsters than you can imagine. He's not just working at a hotel, he's managing it during a major renovation. He's earned the respect of the people he works with and the people who work for him."

"You think he may not be good enough to be with you." Alex shook her head. "Allison, if you can't see the quality in Tom, then you aren't good enough to be with him."

"Why are you telling me this?" Allison asked. She was offended and uncomfortable by Alex's comments, offended because of their personal nature and uncomfortable because they hit very close to the mark. "I don't believe this is an appropriate discussion; this goes beyond the boundary of what you should concern yourself with. How is it your business what kind of relationship Tom and I have or do not have?"

"I love Tom, and I want him to be happy more than anything else in the world," Alex replied simply. "If I was alive you wouldn't have a chance at him. I'd snatch him up and hold onto him and make sure he forgot all about you. But I'm not alive, and I can't give Tom what he needs. You can. You just have to be smart enough to see that he's worth it."

Allison was taken aback by Alex's honesty, and could find no good argument against it. "You have certainly given me something to think about," she said. "Thank you for offering your perspective."

"I'm offering more than my perspective, I'm giving you a warning," Alex said. "Tom may not be waiting for you by the time you are finished with everything you think is more important than him."

She continued, determined to put everything out there and push Allison as far as she could. "And I know I'm not waiting. Tom's helping me become tangible, and as soon as I can I'm going to shag him. I'm gonna shag him like nobody else, Allison. I'm gonna be his first, and the one he remembers best, long after I've gone through my door into whatever is next for me. Unless you decide to beat me to him."

Alex left; the stunned look on Allison's face was exactly the reaction she had hoped for. Now it was just a matter of waiting to see if her message had been received and her challenge accepted. Alex hoped for Tom's sake that Allison contacted him soon. She hoped for her own sake that Allison never contacted Tom again.

# # #

A couple of days later the phone rang at the house. It very seldom rang anymore, so it caught Hal and Lena off guard at first. Hal answered, spoke briefly with the caller, and returned to the table where they were reviewing the information they had brought back from London. The two of them were trying to decide what to do with the as-yet untouched section of the Barry Grand, and were going through the discard process to see if any ideas were left when they were done.

"That was Allison Larkin," Hal said as he quickly wrote a phone number on a scrap of paper. "She asked for Tom. I explained that he was at work and gave her his mobile number. She gave me her number to give him as well."

"That's kind of out-of-the-blue, isn't it?" Lena asked. "Have they been in touch recently?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

Lena tossed the papers she held into the middle of the table. "I can't do this, Hal. I have no sense of what the space actually looks like. Blueprints aren't enough. I need to see it."

"What do you propose?" Hal asked.

"I think we need to take a field trip. Let's go take a walk-through of that section of the hotel. C'mon, aren't you curious to see how the renovation is going?"

"I am," Hal admitted. "I will be happy to escort you if you want to go."

As they went to the car Lena handed Hal the key fob. "I'm not sure I can actually find the place," she admitted.

He grinned as he opened her door for her. "Are you always this careless about properties you purchase?"

"Only when they come with good-looking men," she replied. "That's where my real investment is."

Hal looked pleased with himself as he settled behind the wheel, so she added, "And I think Tom is coming along very nicely, don't you?" She grinned back at him.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Hal agreed good-naturedly. "Tom has matured dramatically over the past few months. His manners have improved, his speech patterns are becoming much easier to decipher, and he dresses himself better."

"I think Alex has something to do with that," Lena said. "She goes with him when he buys clothes now. I think she actually convinced him to skip the second-hand shops on their last outing."

"They are good for each other," Hal said. "They have developed a strong friendship."

"I think it is more than friendship," Lena said, "which makes me wonder how Allison Larkin is going to fit into Tom's life again."

They pulled into the parking area at the Barry Grand and Hal opened Lena's door and took her hand as she got out of the car. He kept it as they looked together at the swarm of activity in front of them, which was actually the rear of the building. An extensive, multi-level brick-lined garden area, with walking paths and seating areas, was being created.

"Maybe we should just go in the front door," Lena suggested.

Hal agreed. He called Tom first, to see what was happening in the building, and Tom met them at the front door so he could escort them through the construction areas and show off the improvements and changes that were being made. Hal handled himself very well around the humans who were working throughout the building, but he was careful to maintain contact with Lena, even when escorting her through narrow passages between scaffolding. Tom knew better than to stop for introductions.

They avoided getting splattered with paint while agreeing that the colors were very nice, and they admired the updated furnishings in the rooms that had been completed. When they reached the area that had been reserved for future development, Hal relayed Allison's message and gave Tom the paper on which he had written Allison's phone number. Tom called her right away while Lena and Hal walked through the area, including some of the empty rooms. It was actually the quietest part of the building at present. The workmen who stayed there were currently on the clock in other areas of the building and grounds.

Hal had studied the blueprints along with Lena, and because he knew the building he could point out some of the structural requirements that a renovation would need to consider. Lena walked the spaces and got a sense of their size. Tom joined them to let them know that he was meeting Allison in Cardiff on Sunday.

"She wanted me to come to Bristol today, but we've got deadlines and I can't just walk away from my job," Tom said. "I told her I could get to Cardiff for lunch on Sunday and maybe a visit to the museum. I don't know why she wants to see me all of a sudden like. She said it was nothing special, just wanted us to stay in touch."

"Maybe she misses you," Hal said. "You two were very close."

"Where's Alex?" Lena asked.

"Right here," the ghost said as she stepped through the door of a room. "I was checking Winston's slow cooker." At Hal and Lena's puzzled looks she explained, "He likes to put something in the slow cooker in the morning so it will be ready for his supper. I pop in and check on it. A few of the lodgers do that, so they don't have to go out at the end of the day. Sometimes they have supper together."

"How does Winston know you are checking on his food?" Lena asked.

"Tom's idea," Alex said. There's an 'Alex box' on the wall by the kitchen. People leave notes for me. See?" She pulled a hand-written note from her jacket pocket: _Alex, please stir the beef stew in my room. Thanks, Charlene. _"I write _Done_ at the bottom and leave the note to show that I've done the job. Easy peasy."

"Some of the notes are to thank her," Tom said, "and some are just to chat. I thought we'd leave the box there after the hotel re-opens."

"Won't that be a bit public?" Hal asked.

"Well, she's here. No reason to act like she ain't," Tom said.

"Isn't." Alex corrected him gently.

Tom gave her a quick smile. "Alex **isn't** scary, Hal, unless she wants to be. Lots of people believe in ghosts already, so what's the harm?"

Hal looked at Lena. She shrugged. "I think it's up to them, they're the ones who work here."

"Good. Sorted," Tom said. He turned to Alex, who was listening happily to the conversation. "I'm going to meet Allison for lunch on Sunday," he said. "She called."

Alex managed to hide her disappointment from the men, but Lena was perceptive enough to notice the slight droop in her expression.

"That's great, Tom," Alex said cheerfully. "Let me know if you need help picking out your clothes." With that, she walked casually down the hall, turned once to say, "Time to stir the pot!" and stepped through a wall into what was presumably Charlene's room.


End file.
